^ 



THE GREAT CRIME 
AND ITS MORAL 



THE GREAT CRIME 

AND ITS MORAL 



BY 

J. SELDEN WILLMORE 




NEW YORK 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



■^' 



>■ 






PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



"Kpelaacav yap eTraLveros TroXe/xos elpwrjs x^^P^^omris GeoC." 

(For better is a praiseworthy war than a peace which sepa- 
rates from God.) 

Gregory of Nazianzus. 



PREFACE 

The principal features of the Great Crime have been 
already separately recorded and developed in books and 
pamphlets without number and in many languages. In 
the following pages the various counts of the indictment 
are set out in the form of a short but connected narrative, 
and, that the story may carry the greater conviction, the 
details which compose it have been described, wherever 
possible, in the words of neutrals and of Germans them- 
selves, the references to whose writings will serve as a 
guide to readers desiring a closer insight into any particular 
incident or aspect of the Crime. 

We have indeed been at great pains throughout to present 
the facts in as convincing a form as possible; but in some 
cases we have not been able to describe them in all their 
horror because, had we done so, we should have produced 
a work unfit for general reading and so defeated the object 
we have in view, which is to give an opportunity to every 
man, woman and child who has any understanding what- 
ever to realise, once for all, the character of the people 
who have made war on the world, the motives by which 
they were actuated in so doing, the appalling nature of the 
catastrophe which would follow upon the success of their 
scheme — of their plot against humanity — and the danger 
of making peace with them before their power for evil is 
broken. 

For, incredible as it must seem to most of us, there are 
still people who allow themselves to be persuaded that 
Germany was provoked, that she invaded Belgium in 
self-defence, that she had no lust for world-domination, 
that the atrocities have been exaggerated, that it will be 
wise to make peace with her at the earliest moment. 

yii 



viii PREFACE 

It will be said that, in speaking of the aggressors as 
the people of Germany, we ascribe the guilt to the whole 
nation. We shall perhaps only know, when their arms are 
defeated, how far the civil population was in sympathy with 
its rulers — or how far it would have been out of sympathy 
with them had the true circumstances of the aggression 
not been hidden from it. 

Meanwhile, it is clear that the leading men in the country, 
the so-called "Intellectuals," have, as a body, adopted 
the principle that Might is Right and that it is Germany's 
mission to impose her will — or rather, the will of one man, 
her Emperor and War-lord — on the whole of this planet. 

They have mistaken the times. Engrossed in the con- 
templation of their war-machinery, they have failed to see 
that, in the present stage of the evolution of mankind, a 
new order prevails — that, in fact. Right is Might. The 
moral forces, the feeling ever present, though at times dor- 
mant, in the human mind, that good must prevail over evil 
and justice over tyranny, that the weak have equal rights 
with the strong, are more potent to-day than all the hosts 
of Germany, and they will be her undoing. 

The world of to-day does not want the hideous thing 
called German Kultur. There is no place for it in the 
civilisation of the twentieth century, and the nations of 
the earth are determined that it shall not be imposed upon 
them. 

It is this determination which has now brought the 
great peace-loving people of America "to accept" — in 
President Wilson's words — "the gage of battle with this 
natural foe of liberty," and which animates the ten million 
of her youth who have answered the call to arms. 

It is important to observe that the characteristics ^ of the 
German people which have been brought so prominently 
to our notice of late have been associated with them 
throughout their history — in particular, their treachery 

* Including even some of their tactics in war. Dion Cassius, 
describing them in battle, says: "Many of them, owing to the 
closeness of their formation, remained standing even after they 
were killed." — Roman History, xxxviii. 49. 



PREFACE ix 

and disregard of treaties. The Roman and Greek his- 
torians never tire of alluding to this trait. But it is 
not only in the barbarian Germans of the Roman period 
that it is so marked. It appears again and again in each 
succeeding period. This nation has ever made it a principle 
only to keep a treaty when it is to its own convenience to 
do so, a circumstance which cannot be too carefully noted 
by those who will have to decide by what means it will be 
possible to ensure a lasting peace. I therefore make no 
apology for having dealt with it at length in the body of 
the work. 

The Roman general Germanicus believed that the war 
with Germany could only end with the extermination of 
the race. He must have realised the gravity of the 
German danger of his time, which in the beginning took 
the form of predatory incursions into the Gallic provinces, 
and in the end had much to do with the downfall of the 
Empire. There' can be no thought of exterminating the 
race at the present day, but we shall do well to take 
warning from the comment of the historian Florus: 
"Breve id gaudium, quippe German! victi magis quam 
domiti erant" {It was a short-lived joy, for the Germans 
had been conquered rather than subdued), or Tacitus' la- 
ment that they were "triumphati magis quam victi." "It is 
not impossible," wrote Merivale {History of the Romans 
under the Empire, vol. v. p. 51), "that the result of one or 
two more campaigns at this critical moment might have 
delayed for a hundred years the eventual overthrow of the 
Roman Empire.'* 

J. Selden Willmore. 

June, 1917. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I. The Conception of the Plot i 

II. The Psychological Moment 34 

III. The Pretext 52 

IV. The Responsibility: Some German and Neutral Ver- 

dicts 117 

V. Kultur and Morality 130 

VI. How Germany Wages War: Ofi&cial Reports on 
Atrocities Committed by the German and Aus- 
trian Troops in Europe 144 

VII. The Testimony of German Soldiers and Other Evi- 
dence 180 

VIII. A German Defence 200 

IX. Murder by Land and Sea 204 

X. Atrocities in Africa 211 

XI. The Murder of a Nation : The Exploits of Germany's 

Allies 213 

Xn. The Treatment of Prisoners 226 

XIII. Methods of Persuasion 232 

XIV. The World under German Rule; the Fate of Islam 239 

XV. The Germans as They See Themselves and as 

Others Have Seen Them 257 

XVI. The Dangers of a Premature Peace 284 

xi 



THE GREAT CRIME AND 
ITS MORAL 



THE CONCEPTION OF THE PLOT 

Two years ago, a writer in a French newspaper likened 
the conduct of the Prussian troops of the time of Frederick 
the Great to that of the armies of William II, concluding 
in the following words: — 

"Their insolent bearing towards tne French a hundred 
years ago, exhibited the same mentalite delirante of which 
the German soldiers are giving proof to-day. But directly 
the disillusionment came at Jena, their valour deserted 
them and they quickly fell to pieces. And history will 
repeat itself. The Germans are indomitable as long as 
they are numerically superior to their enemies, but they 
are incapable of supporting a reverse.^ When they have 
sustained a serious defeat and have been brought face to 
face with the real situation, their bluster will evaporate 
as it did in 1806, and with it their energy and power of 
resistance. An immediate and total collapse will follow, 
and their old god himself will sound a parley." ^ 

Already there are signs that their confidence is failing 
them, as our advance proceeds in the west, and there 

^"As resourceless in reverse as they are impetuous in success," 
says Tacitus of their ancestors {Annals, i. 68). "Craven in 
defeat they respect no law, human or divine, in victory" {ibid., 

ii- 14)- 

'' Leur vieux dieu lui-meme battra la chamade. See below, p. 
243 seq. 



2 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

arises before their vision the spectre of a mighty force, 
grown of "disorganised battalions" and "contemptible 
little armies," marching to crush them in its avenging 
grasp. A leading article in the Miinchner Neueste Nach- 
richten recognised the danger so long ago as October 1916. 
"On all sides," it wrote, "the ring of our enemies is 
closing more and more firmly. It is futile to shut our eyes 
to this. Against us is ranged not only colossal material 
but immense intellectual and moral force." 

The collapse may be postponed, or it may be imminent; 
it may be unexpectedly hastened by the economic con- 
ditions now prevailing in Germany and Austria; in any 
case it is inevitable. And when it comes, will this nation 
be ready to do its duty, or shall we be as little prepared 
for the end of the war as we were for its outbreak? There 
is a danger that, by that day, some of us will have suffered 
the memory of the circumstances to which this war owes 
its origin, and the appalling barbarity with which our 
enemies have conducted it, to become dimmed, and will be 
ready to accept a "halting peace," the very peace which 
Germany is already striving by every means to obtain, 
namely, conditions which would enable her to recuperate 
her forces, and prepare for a still more powerful attack 
upon the rights of man and the freedom of the nations, 
and an attack which we may well fear would be successful, 
"After our armies have won the war, our statesmen will 
have to win the peace, and their task will indeed be difficult 
unless public opinion is alert, organised, and eager to 
support them in a clearly-defined and enlightened policy." ^ 
The present, therefore, is a fitting moment to review the 
events which brought about the unparalleled carnage of 
the past years and the role which the Central Powers, 
and in particular, Germany, have played therein from the 
beginning to the present date. 

The war arose, in one word, out of Prussian megalomania, 
or the mad ambition of a section of the Teutonic race to 
see the peoples of the earth bow down to Germany. This 

* The New Europe, October 19, 1916. 



THE CONCEPTION OF THE PLOT 3 

ambition had been growing for forty years, unheeded by 
the public of this country, in spite of the warnings uttered 
from time to time by men who were sufficiently clear- 
sighted to recognise its true significance. Of one of these, 
the late Lord Salisbury, Professor Cramb wrote in 19 13 — 

"In this very matter of Germany he foresaw, point by 
point, her development; at the beginning of his career 
in one brilliant article after another in our quarterlies. 
Lord Salisbury, then Lord Robert Cecil, marked out the 
exact lines which that development took from the Kiel 
Canal right on to those batteries and 'Dreadnoughts' 
concentrated there in the North Sea, which are already, 
whether we regard them as such or not, the first conflict 
between England and Germany. ... If ever a great 
warning was given to a people it was contained in those 
words, in his reference to dying empires and dying nations, 
to the passing of kingdoms, the vicissitudes of states and 
the mutation in things; and, above all, in his appeal to 
Englishmen to arm and prepare themselves for war, for 
a war which might be on them at any hour and a war for 
their very existence as a nation and as a race. . . . 

"And to the words of the last great Englishman in 
politics there have been added the message and solemn 
warning of perhaps the greatest living leader of men in 
the field of battle . . . Lord Roberts." ^ 

For twenty years, as he reminds us, in his Inner History 
of German Diplomacy, Dr. Dillon had been stating his 
conviction "that Germany's energies, military, naval, 
financial, commercial, diplomatic, and journalistic were 
fixed upon exhaustive preparations for the tremendous 
struggle to establish Teutonic supremacy in Europe; 
that that struggle was unavoidable; that the German 
war machine was in all respects worthy of the money, 
time and energies that had been spent in creating and 
perfecting it, and that no European army could compete 
with it." ^ In the Contemporary Review of October, 191 1, 

* Germany and England, pp. 37, 38, 39. 

'^ A Scrap of Paper: The Inner History of German Diplomacy, 
PP- 50, 51- 



4 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

he wrote: "The plain truth is in this country we fail 
utterly to fathom the German psyche, just as in the 
Fatherland they misunderstand the working of the national 
British soul. What is meanwhile clear enough is that the 
peace of Europe is at the mercy of well-armed, restless, 
ill-balanced Germany; that no section of that gifted and 
enterprising people differs sufficiently in its mode of 
thought and feeling from any other section, to warrant 
our regarding it as a check upon rash impulses or pre- 
datory designs; that treaties possess no binding or de- 
terrent force, and that friendly conduct on the part of 
Great Britain or France has no propitiatory effect. Brute 
force is the only thing that counts." 

The Hungarian, Dr. Emil Reich, warned us in 1907: 
"Infinitely more consonant," he said, "with the dignity, 
past and future prestige of Great Britain would it be if all 
men of leading spirit, all preachers, teachers, statesmen, 
journalists, or thinkers of this country joined in bringing 
before the nation the necessity of preparations which, if 
properly made, would indeed retard, or eventually frustrate, 
any attempt on the part of Germany. To talk of universal 
military service, even if it is done by Lord Roberts, is 
hateful to the majority of British citizens. Where the 
victor in so many battles can carry no conviction, we 
should be only foolishly presumptuous in trying to con- 
vince our readers. The facts of the near future will 
convince them." ^ 

"World domination," wrote the Socialist leader, Mr. 
Robert Blatchford in 1909, "is the dream of Germany 
to-day, as it was in bygone days the dream of Babylon, 
of Persia, of Greece, and of Rome ; the policy of Germany 
is the Bismarckian policy of deliberate and ruthless con- 
duct, with world domination for its goal. . . . All Europe 
is to be Teutonised; we are all to be drilled and schooled 
and uniformed and taxed by Prussian officials . . . that 
is the Pan-Germanic dream. That is the ambition which 
is driving Germany into a war of aggression against this 

* Germany's Swelled Head, pp. 142-3. 



THE CONCEPTION OF THE PLOT 6 

country. But the British people do not believe it. . . . 
The danger is very great, and is very near. It is greater 
and nearer than it was when I began to give warning of it 
more than five years ago. . . . Serious warnings have been 
uttered publicly by Mr. Asquith and by Mr. Balfour, by 
Sir Edward Grey, by Lord Lansdowne, by Lord Cromer, 
by Lord Roberts. These warnings have not been sufficiently 
gross or sufficiently explicit to be understanded of the 
people. . . . Let us look at the evidence. . . ." ^ 

And in what did this evidence consist? What author- 
ised these men to issue their anxious warnings? In the 
first place they had perceived unmistakable signs — signs 
which should have escaped no one who did not wilfully close 
his eyes to them — that Germany was bent on bringing 
about a general war in Europe from which she hoped to 
emerge as the mistress of the world; that she was preparing 
to work out her destiny, as Bismarck said it must be 
worked out, hy blood and iron. Since 1871 she had been 
consolidating with an ever-increasing energy the role she 
then assumed of the predominant military Power in 
Europe. By a series of Army Acts her peace establish- 
ment was gradually raised from 427,000 to over 800,000 
men. In the five years between 1904 and 1909 her annual 
war budget was increased from twenty-seven million 
pounds to forty-one millions until finally it reached the fig- 
ure of sixty millions. In 191 3 she passed an Act by which 
the war strength was raised to 5,400,000. This force was 
superior to the other armies of Europe in the organisation, 
training and equipment of all its units, and measures 
were provided by the Act to render it capable of immediate 
mobilisation. 

But the creation of this mighty army was a direct 
menace to the peace of Continental Europe only. The 
menace to Great Britain and Greater Britain, came with the 
German Navy Bill of 1898, and the Kaiser's telegram to, 
his brother, in connection with the scheme it foreshadowed. 
"I will never rest," he said, "until I have raised the 

* Germany and England, p. 47. 



6 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

German navy to the position which the German army holds 
to-day," which was equivalent to saying: "I will build 
a fleet which shall be as greatly superior to that of Great 
Britain as my army is to that of France or Russia." 

At the same time, a semi-official Navy League was 
formed which made no secret of its aim to obtain for 
Germany the supremacy of the seas. It had a million 
members, and a revenue of £50,000. The numerous 
publications of this League displayed a violent hostility 
to England, and the famous toast of its members "zum 
Tage" {to the Day) gave expression to their aspirations. ^ 
Other naval Acts were passed. That of 1900 doubled the 
programme of the preceding one; and a reduction of the 
naval budget in England was invariably followed by 
renewed activity in Germany. An attempt on our part to 
economise between 1906 and 1908 resulted in the passing 
by the Reichstag of a naval Bill which, unless we had 
quickly awakened to the situation, would have secured to 
Germany a preponderance in capital ships over the British 
fleet. It provided for a new fleet of battleships of the 
Dreadnought and Super-Dreadnought class. In 19 12 a fur- 
ther Bill again increased the naval expenditure, and placed 
four-fifths of the fleet in such a position that it could be 
immediately mobilised at a short distance from our coasts. 

How could the presence of this new and powerful fleet 
in the North Sea fail to constitute a permanent menace 
to the British Empire, seeing that that Empire must in- 
evitably cease to exist the moment it loses its supremacy 
on the sea? In 1906 the British Government proposed 
at the Hague Conference that there should be a mutual 
restriction of naval armaments, and a similar proposal was 
made by the Admiralty in 1913; but in each case the 

^"In the Pangerman Union (Alldeutscher Verhand), in the 
Navy League (Flottenverein) , the Defence League (Wehrverein), 
and similar associations Germany already possessed gigantic or- 
ganisations, extending over the whole Empire, which were prepar- 
ing her, in accordance with a definite programme, for the 'in- 
evitable' war for world-supremacy." — Hermann Fernau, Gerade 
•well ich Deutscher bin! (authorised English Translation p. 44). 



THE CONCEPTION OF THE PLOT 7 

scheme met with a cold reception at the hands of Germany. 
It did not suit her purpose; and moreover German states- 
men looked upon such proposals as a sign of England's 
decadence. "Now that she feels her strength leaving her," 
they argued, "now that her day is over, she talks to others 
of disarmament." ^ 

And whilst these preparations were going on, and previ- 
ously to them, Germany's agents were busy in England, 
France and in other countries, furnishing their Government 
with information which would sooner or later be turned 
to account. A marvellous system of espionage was organ- 
ised throughout the world and maintained by a secret serv- 
ice fund of milliards of marks. 

It would not be surprising to learn that every German 
abroad was expected to supply his Government with any 
"useful" information which he might be able to obtain, 
and that every resident of that nationality in this country 
held instructions as to the duties to be performed by him 
in the event of a sudden descent of German armies on our 
coasts. I think it was in 1907 that a letter was published 
in a London newspaper in which the writer recounted how 
he had sought to verify this view which he had long held. 
He seated himself one day at a table in the dining-room 
of a hotel, where a German was breakfasting alone, and 
engaged in conversation with him. Speaking German per- 
fectly, he was able to make his companion believe that he 
was one of his countrymen. Suddenly he said to him : "Wo 
mobilisieren Sie?" {Where do you mobilised), and the an- 
swer came: "Zu Portsmouth" (At Portsmouth). 

Some interesting details concerning the German spy sys- 
tem in France are given by M. Paul Lanoir, in a work 
published in 1908. ^ "Why is it," he says, "that such 
works as the following, viz. Stieher's Memoirs, Doctor 
Burch's Notebook, German Amours, Zerniki's Recollec- 
tions, Conversations of Eckermann and Goethe, Chevalier 

^Germany and England, p. 31, 

^ L'Espionnage Allemand en France: Son Organisation, Ses 
Dangers, Les Remedes Necessaires. English translation by an 
English officer (Mills & Boon, Ltd.) 



8 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

Wolheim's Indiscretions, The Active Service Police in the 
Wars of 1866 and 1870, and other most instructive publi- 
cations of a specialised character, are so little known, not 
only to the general public in France, but, what is more dis- 
tressing still, to those Frenchmen who are specially charged 
with the duty of frustrating, as far as is possible, the de- 
structive activities of the innumerable agents of the German 
Secret Police? These latter at the present moment com- 
prise not less than 30,000 individuals of both sexes, Ger- 
mans, Swiss, and Belgians, distributed throughout our ter- 
ritory, in our garrison towns, at railway junctions, and in 
localities in the neighbourhood of strategic points and 
places of concentration of troops. . . . 

"From such reading will be drawn the conclusion that 
since the time of Frederick, who used often to say, T have 
one cook and a hundred spies,' spying in its multifarious 
forms has always been considered on the other side of the 
Rhine as one of the most essential parts of the machinery 
for the defence of the monarchy and the protection of 
established institutions. 

"The recruiting of the executive personnel is, moreover, 
a very easy matter in Germany, where the profession of a 
spy is adopted as readily as is that of a Government official 
or a prison guard in Corsica." ^ 

M. Lanoir describes the discovery in 1884 of a scheme 
devised by Stieber, the famous director of the spy system 
in Germany, and approved by Bismarck, by which it would 
be possible for the whole of the French rolling-stock to be 
rendered, at a given moment, useless for the mobilisation 
of troops by the instrumentality of a number of German 
agents who, with that object in view, had obtained employ- 
ment in the State railways. "The object aimed at in 
Stieber's plan of 1880, modifying that of 1876, was to give 
his master the assurance that, at the instant that it should 
please King William, in his Imperial Cabinet, to press the 
electric button, giving the signal for mobilisation, he, 
Stieber, would press the button for the destruction of our 

*pp. 1-2. 



THE CONCEPTION OF THE PLOT 9 

railways by his spies distributed in the capacity of work- 
men and employees in every portion of the national railway 
system of France." ^ 

As her preparations grew more complete, attempts were 
made by Germany, or personally by the Emperor, to assert 
her authority in Europe, and test the power of other na- 
tions to resist her ambitions. In the year 1898, the Em- 
peror made a journey to Damascus and, in a speech which 
he delivered there, declared that he took all Mussulmans 
under his protection, including, we presume, the sixty-seven 
millions which owe allegiance to England, not to speak of 
the Mohammedan subjects of France, Russia, Holland and 
other countries. 

On the 2 1 St March, 1905, he landed at Tangier and 
delivered another public speech, in which he expressed 
his determination to uphold the interests of Germany in 
Morocco. This incident took place the year following the 
arrangement to which England and France had come con- 
cerning their respective interests in Egypt and Morocco, 
and was intended to test the strength of the Anglo-French 
Alliance. It ended in the Algegiras Conference. Later 
on, in 191 1, another thrust was made at this Alliance, 
when a German gunboat was suddenly sent to the Fort 
of Agadir.^ Energetic action on the part of England on 
that occasion gave Germany to understand that she was 
not yet sufficiently powerful to fulfil her "destiny," though 
"no one doubted then, or doubts to-day, that England 
stood in that year on the brink of a war, which she had 
done nothing to provoke. The situation was saved in 191 1 

^ Ibid., p. 47. Throughout this book the italics in the quotations 
are those of the authors cited. 

*M. H. von Gerlach, writing in 1913, takes his country to 
task for the provocation which it was giving to France in par- 
ticular by the despatch of the Panther to Agadir and the sudden 
increase of the army which was the cause of the French extending 
the military service from two years to three. "Can one be 
astonished," he says, "if the public in France is becoming more 
and more embittered against us?" — (Unvernunft iiben und driiben, 
in Die Welt am Montag of 25th April, 1913.) 



10 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

by the solidarity of England and France. Two Powers 
which, in the past, had been separated by a multitude 
of prejudices and conflicting ambitions, felt at last that 
they were opposed to a common danger of a most serious 
character." ^ 

These facts were sufficient in themselves to arouse the 
gravest suspicions as to the meaning of Germany's pre- 
parations. But there was another circumstance which in 
itself more than justified the issue of such warnings as 
those we have cited above. A number of German military 
men, professors, and even theologians had for years past 
been openly preaching to their country that war, which 
had hitherto been regarded by all civilised peoples as an 
evil, was a thing to be desired, and, indeed, necessary for 
the health of a nation.^ They preached at the same time 
that it was German's mission to expand until she spread 
herself over the whole of the globe, crushing all those who 
stood in her path, and carrying with her her "civilisation," 
which, in their eyes, was so superior to that of the rest of 
the world that it was for the benefit of the other nations 
that it should be imposed upon them by the sword. 
"Deutschland iiber Alles" was their watchword, as it is 
now the soldier's battle-cry. It was Germany's destiny 
to "purify" and "educate" the world, and Germany's 
destiny, according to the words of the great Chancellor, 
was to be worked out hy fire and sword. The views of 
these men had in recent years found favour with the 
Sovereign ^ and the politicians, and with practically every 

^ Why We are at War, by Members of the Oxford Faculty of 
Modern History, I. p. 38. 

*"In regard to Germany we are confronted by certain circum- 
stances that indisputably merit our consideration here in England. 
There is, for instance, the annual appearance in Germany of very 
nearly seven hundred books dealing with war as a science. This 
points, at once, to an extreme preoccupation in that nation with 
the idea of war. I doubt whether twenty books a year on the art 
of war appear in this country, and whether their circulation, when 
they do appear, is much more than twenty!" — Germany and Eng- 
land, p. 64. 

' "The idea of war is ever in his Majesty's mind, even when he 
is addressing himself to purely pacific matters. The dove of 



THE CONCEPTION OF THE PLOT 11 

class of the population. The works of one of them, 
Treitschke, had come to be regarded as the people's 
Bible.^ Another of them, General von Bernhardi, has been 
decorated with the Iron Cross, and his book, Germany and 
the Next War, had already by the year 1896 passed through 
six editions. 

Let these men speak in their own words : "The Govern- 
ment," writes Bernhardi, "must do everything to foster 
a military spirit and to make the nation comprehend the 
duties and aims of an imperial policy. It must continually 
point to the significance and to the necessity of war as an 
indispensable agent in policy and civilisation, together 
with the duty of self-sacrifice and devotion to State and 
country." ^ 

"We must rouse in our people the unanimous wish for 
power together with the determination to sacrifice, on the 
altar of patriotism, not only life and property, but also 

peace is always mated with the German eagle. His Majesty 
cannot unveil a civic monument without referring to the military 
glory of his ancestors. He cannot address an educational con- 
ference without emphasising that, in his opinion, the best kind of 
education is that which leads the youth of Germany to contem- 
plate the military achievements of their forefathers. He cannot 
pay a compliment to the ruler of another State without at the same 
time referring to the bravery and chivalry of the other monarch's 
military forces. He cannot even preach a sermon without referring 
to the military exploits of the ancient Hebrews; and he cannot 
even pray without calling upon the Lord of Hosts to lead the Ger- 
man army to victory." Germany's War Mania, p. 19. (A. W. 
Shaw Co. Ltd.) 

"The only occasions where the German Emperor does not men- 
tion the German army is when he is talking about the German 
navy" {ihid., p. 47). 

* The German writer, O. Umf rid, speaks of Treitschke as hav- 
ing founded a school whose name is shouted like a battlecry. "It 
is he," he says, "who has given the halo of principle and justice 
to actually performed deeds of political violence" {The Soul of 
Germany, by Thomas F. A. Smith, p. 197). "Justification for all 
the horrible crimes which Germany has committed in Belgium and 
France may be found in Treitschke's Die Politik" {ihid., p. 191). 

^ Germany and the Next War, by Friedrich von Bernhardi, 
translated by Allen H. Powles, p. 255. 



IS THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

private views and preferences in the interests of the 
common welfare. Then alone shall we discharge our great 
duties of the future, grow into a World Power, and stamp 
a great part of humanity with the impress of the German 
spirit. If, on the contrary, we persist in that dissipation 
of energy which now marks our political life, there is 
imminent fear that in the great contest of the nations, 
which we must inevitably face, we shall be dishonourably 
beaten." ^ 

"Our next war will be fought for the highest interests 
of our country and of mankind. This will invest it with 
importance in the world's history. 'World power or 
downfall' {Weltmacht oder Niedergang) , will be our rally- 
ing cry. , . ." ^_ 

"If the Imperial Government was of the opinion that it 
was necessary in the present circumstances to avoid war, 
still the situation in the world generally shows there can 
only be a short respite before we once more face the ques- 
tion whether we will draw the sword for our position in 
the world or renounce such position once and for all. We 
must not, in any case, wait until our opponents have com- 
pleted their arming and decide that the hour of attack 
has come. . . . We may expect from the Government that 
it will prosecute the military and political preparation for 
war with the energy which the situation demands, in clear 
knowledge of the dangers threatening us, but also in cor- 
rect appreciation of our national needs and of the warlike 
strength of our people, and that it will not let any conven- 
tional scruples distract it from this object. 

"Repeal of the Five Years Act, reconstruction of the 
army on an enlarged basis, accelerated progress in our 
naval armaments, preparation of sufficient financial means 
— ^these are requirements which the situation calls for. 
New and creative Tdeas must fructify our policy and lead 
it to the happy goal. 

"The political situation offers many points on which to 
rest our lever. England, too, is in a most difficult position. 

^Germany and the Next War, p. 114. 
Uhid., p. 153. 



THE CONCEPTION OF THE PLOT 13 

The conflict of her interests with Russia's in Persia and 
in the newly arisen Dardanelles question, as well as the 
power of Islam in the most important parts of her colonial 
Empire, are the subjects of permanent anxiety in Great 
Britain. Attention has already been called to the signifi- 
cance and difficulty of her relation with North America. 
France also has considerable obstacles still to surmount in 
her African Empire, before it can yield its full fruits. 
The disturbance in the Far East will probably fetter Rus- 
sia's forces, and England's interests will suffer in sympa- 
thy. These are all conditions which an energetic and far- 
sighted German policy can utilise in order to influence 
the general political situation in the interests of our 
Fatherland." ^ 

"We Germans, therefore, must not be deceived by such 
official efforts to maintain the peace. Arbitration courts 
must evidently always consider the existing judicial and 
territorial rights. For a rising State, which has not yet 
attained the position due to it, which is in urgent need of 
colonial expansion, and can only accomplish it chiefly at 
the cost of others, these treaties therefore augur ill at once, 
as being apt to prevent a rearrangement of power. In the 
face of this widespread peace propaganda, and in opposi- 
tion to it, we must firmly keep in view the fact that no 
arbitration court in the world can remove and settle any 
really great tension that exists and is due to deep-seated 
national, economical and political antagonism; and that, on 
the other hand, it is impossible to change the partition of 
the earth, as it now exists, in our favour by diplomatic 
artifices. If we wish to gain the position in the world 
that is due to us, we must rely on our sword, renounce 
all weakly visions of peace." ^ 

"The efforts directed towards the abolition of war must 
not only be termed foolish but absolutely immoral, and 
must be stigmatised as unworthy of the human race." ^ 

* Germany and the Next War, p. 287. 

'Bemhardi, How Germany makes War, English translation 
(Hodder &Stoughton), Introd., p. xiii. 
"J&wi., p. 34. 



14 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

"War is an Instrument of progress, a regulator in the 
life of humanity, an indispensable factor in civilisation, 
a creative force." ^ 

"Then again, there are the false apostles of to-day who 
condemn war as in itself reprehensible. A universal peace, 
in which wolf and lamb shall dwell together in unity, is 
proved possible by a multitude of misleading and seduc- 
tive arguments. Thus do the shadows deepen over the 
ancient Germanic ideal of a proud nation of warriors, 
an ideal which is bound to lose its power to attract, par- 
ticularly in a prolonged peace, when even the most mar- 
tial-minded see that all chances of testing their prowess 
are fading gradually away. . . . The warlike spirit must 
not be allowed to die out among people, neither must the 
love of peace get the upper hand, for all the greater would 
be the consternation at the moment of awakening. If the 
Fatherland is to remain victorious, we must not let our 
ol^ ideals of manly courage, fearless scorn of death, and 
knightly virtue be destroyed, but must cherish and uphold 
them to the utmost, both in this generation and in all that 
are to come." ^ 

"Every means must therefore be employed to oppose 
these visionary schemes. They must be publicly denounced 
as what they really are — as an unhealthy and feeble Utopia, 
or a cloak for political machinations. Our people must 
learn to see that the maintenance of peace never can or 
may be the goal of a policy. . . . The inevitableness, the 
idealism and the blessing of war, as an indispensable 
and stimulating law of development, must be repeatedly 
emphasised." ^ 

"You must love peace as a means to war and prefer the 
shorter peace to the long. . . . War and courage perform 
greater deeds than the love of our neighbour." * 

"It has always been the weary, spiritless and exhausted 

^How Germany makes War, p, 2. 

" Baron von der Goltz, Jena to Eylati, quoted in Germany's War 
Mania, pp. 186-7. 

' Germnay and the Next War, p. 37. 
* Nietzsche, Also Spraeh Zarathustra, 



THE CONCEPTION OF THE PLOT 15 

ages which have played with the dream of perpetual 
peace." ^ 

"Might is at once the supreme right, and the dispute 
as to what is right is decided by the arbitrament of war. 
War gives a biologically just decision, since its decisions 
rest on the very nature of things." ^ 

"But it (war) is not only a biological law, but a moral 
obligation, and, as such, an indispensable factor in civ- 
ilisation." ^ 

"If war is permitted by God, then warfare is a duty. 
. . . Such a duty and such fulfilment are not only 
consistent with Christianity but are demanded by 
Christianity." * 

"Perpetual peace is a dream and it is not even a beautiful 
dreami. War forms part of the universal order instituted 
by God." ^ 

"Especially in a State which is so wholly based on war 
as is the German Empire, the old manly principle of keep- 
ing all our forces on the stretch must never be aban- 
doned out of deference to the effeminate philosophy of 
the day." « 

"We Germans have a far greater and more urgent duty 
to perform towards civilisation than the Great Asiatic 
Power. We, like the Japanese, can only fulfil it by the 
sword. Shall we, then, decline to adopt a bold and active 
policy, the most effective means with which we can prepare 
our people for its military duty ?" '^ 

"The German nation, too . . . will rise to the height 
of its great dut}''. A mighty force, which only awaits 
the summons, sleeps in its soul. Whoever to-day can 
awaken the slumbering idealism of this people, and 
rouse the national enthusiasm by placing before its eyes 

*Treitschke, quoted by Bernhardi in Germany and the Next 
War, p. 17. 

"Germany and the Next War, p. 23. 'Ibid., p. 24. 

*A leading Berlin clergyman in the Deutsche Tageszeitung. 

"Count Moltke, December ii, 1880 (see Andler, F rightfulness, 
translated by Miall, p. 94). 

® Germany and the Next War, p. 261. ''Ibid., p. 258. 



16 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

a worthy and comprehensible ambition, will be able to 
sweep this people on, in united strength, to the highest 
efforts and sacrifices, and will achieve a truly magnificent 
result. 

"In the consciousness of being able at any time to call 
up these forces, and in the sure trust that they will not 
fail in the hour of danger, our Government can firmly 
tread the path which leads to a splendid future; but it 
will not be able to liberate all the forces of Germany, unless 
it wins her confidence by successful action and takes for 
its motto the brave words of Goethe — 

"Bid defiance to every power ! 
Ever valiant, never cower! 
To the brave soldier open flies 
The golden gates of Paradise."* 

"When we realise all these facts (the greatness of 
England and the extent of her Empire and also of that of 
France and Russia), and then consider the situation of the 
German people, who see a third of their population living 
outside the limits of the German Empire under a foreign 
domination; if we remember, moreover, that the whole of 
our colonial empire is no greater than two and a half mil- 
lion square kilometres with twelve million inhabitants, the 
German cannot help being seized with rage that things 
should be as they are. ... If we remember, lastly, that, 
of all nations of the earth, the German has the highest 
form of general culture and its army on land is by every- 
body acknowledged to be the first and best in the world, 
this accursed inferiority of our colonial power becomes 
more and more enigmatic. And if we add the fact that the 
German nation has now attained to the same general 
prosperity as the French and English nations, and that 
we occupy the second rank in the importance of our 
commercial exports, it becomes more and more incom- 
prehensible that we should be relegated to the situation 
in which we are now placed in the world, and the whole 

* Germany and the Next War, p. 282. 



THE CONCEPTION OF THE PLOT lY 

German nation must now realise that our ancestors have 
left us much to do." ^ 

"Let us not forget the civilising task which is incumbent 
on us in accordance with the decree of Providence. Just 
as Prussia was destined to be the kernel of Germany {Kern 
Deutschlands) so Germany regenerated will be the kernel 
of the future Empire of the West. And that none may 
be ignorant, we proclaim, from this moment, that our na- 
tion has a right to the sea, not only to the North Sea, but 
to the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. We will absorb 
one after the other of the provinces adjoining Prussia. 
We will annex successively Denmark, Holland, Belgium, 
the Franche-Comte, the north of Switzerland, Livonia, 
Trieste and Venice, and finally, the north of France from 
the Somme to the Loire." ^ 

"We will annex Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Switzer- 
land, Livonia, Trieste and Venice. . . . This programme, 
which we exhibit, is not the work of a madman; this Em- 
pire, which we intend to establish, will not be a Utopia, we 
have already in our hands the means of realising it." ^ 

"The future territory of German expansion," wrote 
Ernst Hasse, "situated between the territories of the East- 
ern and Western Powers, must absorb all the intermediate 
regions ; it must stretch from the North Sea to the Baltic ; 
from the Netherlands, taking in Luxemburg and Switzer- 
land, down to the islands of the Danube and the Balkan 
Peninsula, and will include Asia Minor as far as the Persian 
Gulf. All foreign influence must be eliminated."* 

"A successful policy cannot be followed without taking 
chances and facing risks. It must be conscious of its goal 
and keep this goal steadily in view. It must press every 
change of circumstances and all unforeseen occurrences 
into the service of its own ideas. Above all things, 

*Tannenberg, Gross-DeutsMand (Leipzig, 1911), p. 212. 

* General von Qausewitz, quoted in Paroles Allemandes ("Li- 
brairie Berger-Levrault, 191 5" )» P- 92- 

' General Bronsart von Schellendorf, ex-Minister for War in 
the Prussian Cabinet, quoted in Paroles Allemandes, p. 95. 

' Weltpolitik. 



18 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

it must be ready to seize the psychological moment and 
take bold action if the general position of affairs indicates 
the possibility of realising political ambitions, or of waging 
a necessary war under favourable conditions." ^ 

"A further influence of policy on the conduct of the war 
is established by the fact that policy must choose the mo- 
ment for the State to take up arms." ^ 

"Finally, preparations for war must also be made po- 
litically ; that is to say, efforts must be made to bring about 
a favourable political conjuncture, and, so far as possible, 
to isolate the first enemy with whom a war is bound to 
come. If that cannot be effected, an attempt must be 
made to win allies in whom confidence can be reposed, 
should war break out." ^ 

"If we attacked France or Russia, the ally would be 
compelled to bring help, and we should be in a far worse 
position than if we had only one enemy to fight. Let it 
then be the task of our diplomacy so to shuffle the cards 
that we may be attacked by France, for then there would 
be reasonable prospect that Russia for a time would remain 
neutral. 

"If we wish to bring about an attack by our opponents 
we must initiate an active policy which, without attacking 
France, will so prejudice her interests or those of England, 
that both these States would feel themselves compelled to 
attack us. Opportunities for such procedure are offered 
both in Africa and Europe. ... In opposition to these 
ideas, the view has frequently been brought forward that 
we should wait quietly and let time fight for us, since from 
the force of circumstances many prizes will fall into our 
laps for which we have now to struggle hard." ^ 

"In one way or another we must square our account with 
France, if we wish for a free hand in our international 
policy. This is the first and foremost condition of a sound 
German policy; and since the hostility of France once for 

* Germany and the Next War, p. 275. 
'How Germany makes War, p. 151. 

* Germany and the Next War, p. 260. 
*Ihid., p. 280. 



THE CONCEPTION OF THE PLOT 19 

all cannot be removed by peaceful overtures, the matter 
must be settled by force of arms. France must be so 
completely crushed that she can never again come across 
our path." ^ 

"Even a coalition of France and Russia could be over- 
come with our forces alone if without hesitation and with- 
out scruple we employ greater violence." ^ 

Speaking of the Franco-German Convention concerning 
the affairs of Morocco, Bernhardi writes: "We need not 
regard this Convention as definitive ; it is as liable to revi- 
sion as the Algegiras Treaty, and indeed offers, in this re- 
spect, the advantage that it creates new opportunities of 
friction with France." ^ 

Of Russia Paul de Lagarde wrote in 1881 : "We must 
create a Central Europe, which would guarantee the peace 
of the entire Continent from the moment when it shall 
have driven the Russians from the Black Sea, and the Slavs 
from the south, and shall have conquered large tracts to 
the east of our frontiers, for German colonisation. We 
cannot let loose ex ahrupto the war which will create this 
Central Europe; all we can do is to accustom our people 
to the thought that this must come." * 

It has long been a theory of German writers that small 
States have no right to exist; they must be merged in the 
greater; and the German Secretary of State for Foreign 
Affairs, Herr von Jagow, has endorsed this principle; 
"they are destined to disappear," he has said, "or to grav- 
itate into the orbit of the Great Powers." ^ Treitschke 
had already written: "It is evident that, if the State has 
power, it is only the most powerful State which bears out 
that conception, so that no one can deny the absurdity 
of the existence of a small State. There is no absurdity 

* Germany mid the Next War, p. 105. Tannenberg and Fry- 
mann express the same opinion: "Frankreich muss zerschmettert 
werden" {France must he crushed) is the "Delenda est Carthago" 
of Cato. 

'Hans Delbruck, Deutschland bei Beginn des 20 Jahrhunderts, 
1900, p. 212. * Germany and the Next War, p. 285. 

* Deutsche Schriften, 4th edition, 1903, p. 83. 
'Durkheim, Germany Above All (English translation), p. 37. 



20 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

in weakness itself, but there is great absurdity in weakness 
which tries to pass itself off as power." ^ 

Various writers disposed of the fate of these countries; 
of Holland, Fritz Bley wrote in 1897: "We require these 
new Dutch territories, already fertilised by German blood, 
for the indispensable expansion of our economic dominion. 
On a Rhine which has become German to the mouth we 
need a free traffic, which the silent resistance of Holland 
now hampers." ^ 

"Holland, with its Royal Family, its European territory, 

*Treitschke, Politik, vol. i. p. 41. 

"This doctrine of Treitschke is now professed by all the Ger- 
man professors and writers without any exception; it is com- 
mented upon and developed by professors such as Laland and 
Spahn, of the University of Strasbourg; Adolph Lasson, Professor 
of Philosophy at the University of Berlin; Oncken, Professor at 
the University of Heidelberg; Wilhelm Ostwald, Professor of 
Chemistry at the University of Leipzig; Ernst Haeckel, Pro- 
fessor at the University of Jena, and by many others whose names 
it would take too long to enumerate. One might say that this 
doctrine has become to-day the fundamental creed of German 
politics and of German aspirations, both in the military and in 
the civil domain. 

" 'They are no more,' says one of his disciples, 'than parasitic 
organisms which can merely move in the orbits of the Great 
Powers, and which live at their expense.' The historical pro- 
cess, which must impose itself on them sooner or later, is the 
aggregation of all those small States into great political units; 
that must happen to all the minute States (Kleinstaaterei) , 
which in the feudal times constituted Europe, and which even 
at the present day remain incapable of developing a national 
life, and cannot arrest the expansion and influence of the great 
States. 'And no one will regret the disappearance of these 
small States,' says Treitschke, 'not even their own citizens.' Thus 
at the end of a long process of evolution, the kingdom of Prussia 
has been formed, which in turn resulted in the constitution of 
the German Empire; that in turn ought now to reach its final and 
logical result, the growth of Germany into a world-power dic- 
tating its law, not only to Europe but to all the continents." — 
The War and the German Propaganda: a Swiss View of Ger- 
many's Aims (English translation, published by Messrs. Eyre & 
Spottiswoode, Ltd.), p. 9. 

* Quoted by Professor Charles Andler, Pan-Germanism (English 
translation), p. 16. 



THE CONCEPTION OF THE PLOT 21 

and its colonies in South America, the Sunda Islands, and 
in the Australian seas, must be incorporated in the German 
Empire as one of the States of the Bund, and the same is 
the case with Belgium. The Congo State must become a 
German colony." ^ 

"By the entry of Belgium into the German Empire, the 
ancient German frontier near the Scheldt of the time of 
Charles V would be re-established . . . Luxemburg and 
Switzerland would likewise form part of the new Empire, 
while maintaining their present constitution ; but they would 
have to furnish their contingent for the defence of the 
Empire, which has already long protected them, in con- 
formity with the requirements of great Germany." ^ 

"As to Belgium and Holland, these two nations must 
fully realise that the next war will decide their future. 
As things are in Europe, one may say unequivocably that 
the small States have ipso facto lost the right to exist, for 
a State could not make good its right to independence 
unless it could defend it sword in hand. ... It is self- 
evident that, if this union took place, the Dutch language 
would remain undisturbed. In Belgium, preference would 
be given to Flemish, and German would only be compul- 
sory in the army. And we Germans of the Empire would 
give this degenerate nation the possibility of re-establish- 
ing a fruitful and active policy." ^ 

"The Dutch are a practical people, who see their advan- 
tage in everything that they do, and they must admit 
to-day that it would be preferable for them to belong to the 
great German Empire. Three reasons render this concep- 
tion evident. The first is the consideration that small eco- 
nomic dominions cannot maintain themselves efficiently in 
the twentieth century. . . . Another reason for engulfing 
the Netherlands in the German Empire is that the two 
dialects — Dutch with its 5,100,000 and Flemish with 
its three millions and a half — are too feeble to make 
an independent intellectual life possible. . . . The third 
reason is the impossibility for the weak population of 

^ Gross-Deutschland, p. 105. 'Ibid. 

'Frymann, Wenn ich der Kaiser war, pp. 152-5. 



22 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

the Low Countries to play any independent part in a world 
in arms." ^ 

The Koloniales Jahrbiwh for 1897 wrote — 

"The importance of South Africa as a land which can 
receive an unlimited number of white emigrants must rouse 
us to the greatest exertions, in order to secure there su- 
premacy for the Teuton race. The greater part of the 
population of South Africa is of Low German descent. 
We must constantly lay stress on the Low German origin 
of the Boers, and we must, before all, stimulate their hatred 
against Anglo-Saxondom. No doubt the Boers will, with 
characteristically German tenacity, retake their former pos- 
sessions from the English by combining slimness with force. 
In this attempt they can count upon the assistance of the 
German brother nation." ^ 

As for Turkey, whose rulers fondly trusted that Egj^t, 
and perhaps the whole of northern Africa, would be re- 
stored to her as a reward for throwing in her cause with 
Germany, nothing is clearer than that Germany intends to 
include the greater part, if not the whole, of the Ottoman 
Dominions in her new Empire, which is to "spread from 
the North Sea, to the Persian Gulf." She has had that in 
view since her engineers laid down the first kilometre of the 
Adana-Baghdad railway line.^ 

* Gross-Deutschland, pp. 88, 93, 96. 

■* Quoted in Germany's Designs on South Africa, by Percy Fitz- 
patrick, p. 109. 

' "The Germans impose their yoke alike on friend and foe" 
(Tacitus, Hist. iv. 73). Germany had for a long time been tight- 
ening her grasp on Turkey by her methods of "peaceful pene- 
tration." "During the last few years Germany has sunk a great 
deal of capital in Asia Minor and has built numerous schools and 
hospitals. That the Germans seriously regarded Turkey as their 
inheritance is shown not merely by the construction of the Bagdad 
Railway across Asia Minor, but also by the plans for river regu- 
lation and the building of canals towards the Black Sea, which 
have been discussed so diligently during the war. In my opin- 
ion the actual plan of Germany might be expressed even more 
fittingly by the watchword 'Berlin-Cairo.' " — (Thomas G. Masa- 
ryk, late Professor at the Czech University at Prague, and mem- 
ber of the Austrian Parliament, in The New Europe, October 19, 
1916.) 



THE CONCEPTION OF THE PLOT 23 

"What else did her Emperor mean," as Professor 
Andler asks, "when he went to Damascus and proclaimed 
himself the 'Protector of all the Moslems'?" The phrase 
in which the German Pastor Naumann, who was present, 
describes it is a "secret calculation of grave and remote 
possibility." ^ 

"The East is the only territory of the world which has 
not passed under the control of one of the ambitious na- 
tions of the globe," wrote the Arabist, Anton Sprenger; 
"yet it offers the most magnificent field for colonisation, 
and if Germany does not allow this opportunity to escape 
her, if she seizes this domain before the Cossacks lay hands 
upon it, she will have received the best share in the partition 
of the earth. The German Emperor would have the desti- 
nies of nearer Asia in his power if some hundreds o^ thou- 
sands of armed colonists were cultivating this splendid 
plain. He might, and would be the creator of peace for the 
nations." ^ "Germany must lay her mighty grasp on Asia 
Minor," wrote another German patriot.^ 

Tannenberg expresses the same views: "As the Afri- 
can possessions of Islam in the region of the Nile have 
fallen under the English protectorate without there result- 
ing therefrom any coldness in the Anglo-Turkish relations, 
it is perfectly equitable and just that the Turkish posses- 
sions in Asia should pass into the German dominion, seeing 
that we continue to entertain equally friendly relations with 
the Turks. ... Of course we will strictly guarantee the 
rights of Turkey just as is done in the case of Egypt. . . . 
We will consider as much as possible the desires of the 
people just as England has done with such care. The 
territories which we have in mind comprise Asia Minor and 
Armenia, Mesopotamia, Syria and Palestine and northern 
Arabia." * 

"These regions (Asia Minor, Syria and Mesopotamia) 
might become for us what Egypt is for England, that is to 

* Andler, Pan-Germanism (English translation), p. 57. 
'Ibid., p. 40. 

'"Amicus Patriae," Armenien und Kreta, 1896, p. 15. 
■* Gross-D eutschland, pp. 222-3. 



M THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

say, not only an important outlet for the products of our 
national industry but also a starting-point from which we 
might expand towards eastern Asia and Africa." ^ 

Tannenberg suggested a separate treaty with England, 
by which Germany and England are practically to divide 
the whole of the world, with the exception of the United 
States and China, between themselves, the division of China 
being reserved for a future period. 

By Articles 2 and 3, England recognises the re-organisa- 
tion of the Empire of the Hapsburgs by the accession of 
Poland, Serbia, Bulgaria and Roumania, and acknowledges 
the inclusion of Holland and Belgium and their colonies in 
the German Empire. 

By Articles 7, 8, 9, and 10, the French colonies are di- 
vided between Germany and England, with the exception 
of Tunis, which is ceded to Italy, and Algeria, which re- 
mains a French possession. 

By Article 11, Portuguese West Africa goes to Germany 
and Portuguese East Africa to England. 

By Articles 13 and 14, an understanding is to be come 
to between Germany and England as to their spheres of 
influence in South America, Germany undertaking the pro- 
tectorate of the Republics of the Argentine, Chili, Uruguay, 
■ Paraguay, and parts of Bolivia and Brazil. Germany and 
England agree to uphold the partition between themselves 
of South America, in spite of any protest on the part of 
the United States of North America. 

As a peace-offering to the United States, Germany and 
England consent, by Article 15, to the United States exer- 
cising a protectorate over Mexico, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, 
Venezuela and other States. 

By Article 16, Asia Minor, Syria and Mesopotamia, 
Palestine, western Persia and a part of Arabia will consti- 
tute a German protectorate, and Siam will constitute an- 
other. 

By Article 18, England acknowledges Germany's suzer- 
ainty over the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba, Walfish Bay 
and part of the Maldives. 

* Gross-Deutschland, 



THE CONCEPTION OF THE PLOT g5 

In another suggested treaty between Germany and Aus- 
tria it is distinctly stated that the German protectorate 
will eventually extend over the whole of the Turkish Em- 
pire including Constantinople itself. 

Other writers claim that German suzerainty should be 
extended to South America, Central Africa and other parts 
of the globe. 

"Decrepit states like the Argentine and Brazilian Re- 
publics, and, more or less, all those beggarly states of 
South America would be induced, either by force or other- 
wise, to listen to reason," writes Friedrich Lange.^ 

The conviction is held by many in America that this 
ambitious people seriously hoped to include the United 
States in their conquest. 

"The victory of Germany and Austria," writes Professor 
Hale in the New York Tribune, "would mean a Germanised 
and bureaucratically controlled England, France, Russia 
and Italy; for Italy would not survive. It would be a 
world intolerable to live in, and intolerable for an Ameri- 
can to think about. But thinking about it is not the only 
thing that he would suffer. 

"The victory of Germany would put at her disposal an 
enormous fleet, consisting of all the ships that survived 
the war. Her ambition would not be sated. She aims at 
nothing less than world dominion. Deutschland uber 
alles does not mean 'with the exception of the United 
States.' She has known how to attack us. The moment 
she had a trained German personnel for her immense navy, 
South America, or as much as she wanted of it from time 
to time, would become a German colony. The nucleus 
already exists in Brazil, and could easily enough produce 
an excuse for war, if one was thought desirable for his- 
torical purposes. To the winds would go the Monroe 
Doctrine and South American freedom. We, with our then 
relatively tmy navy, should be helpless either to keep 
Germany off or to dislodge her. From South America 
she would strike at us. Our coasts would be at her mercy, 
and she could land her disciplined troops anywhere. The 

^ Reines Deutschtum, 1904, p. 208. 



26 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

country would be full of spies, as France and Belgium are 
to-day. We should fight desperately and our land is of 
great extent. But only disciplined armies can prevail in 
these times. Guerilla warfare is useless. Fighting would 
be done here by railroads and the reduction of great cen- 
tres. The population of Germany and Austria is to-day 
larger than ours by some sixteen millions; and Germany, 
then the mistress of Europe, could safely bring an army 
into the field from many quarters, both of Europe and 
South America. The struggle would be bitter. We should 
have the advantage in distance; but the ocean is narrow 
to-day, as the presence of soldiers from all parts of the 
world on the battlefields of France has shown us. And 
Germany would have every other possible start of us. 

"This is no idle speculation. It is no more a nightmare 
than was the possibility of a Germanised Europe a few 
months ago. We should stop it all by throwing our strength 
now upon the side of the Allies." ^ 

"I agree with the London Spectator: 'Strange as it will 
sound to most American ears ... it is none the less true 
that at this moment what stands between the Monroe doc- 
trine and its complete destruction are our ships in the North 
Sea and the battle-weary, mud-stained men in the British 
and French trenches on the Aisne.' " ^ 

"It seems ignoble, and it is, to cling over-anxiously to 
life when daily so many thousands before our eyes give it 
up. This is our battle, too, that is being fought in Europe ; 
our destiny as well as their own that Belgians, British, 
French, Germans, and all the rest are struggling and dying 
over. This is a conflict of fundamental ideas. If the 
German idea wins, its next great clash seems likely to be 
with the idea that underlies such civilisation as we have in 
these States." ^ 

"Whereas, we believe that the Monroe doctrine and even 
the territories of our own country, have been, and now are, 

* November lo, 1914. 

'J. William White, A Textbook of the War for Americans, 

p. 353- 

^The Wa^-- Week by Week, p. 133. 



THE CONCEPTION OF THE PLOT 27 

'\ 

an avowed aim of Prussian aggression, and that, In the 
event of the success of the Teutonic Powers, the next attack 
would be made against the United States. . . ." ^ 

And as to Great Britain : *'In how many novels, speeches, 
articles and pamphlets have German soldiers and civilians 
declared the national hope and purpose of destroying Brit- 
ish naval supremacy, and breaking up the British Empire? 
Their name is legion." ^ 

Even our language is to disappear and make room for 
the guttural sounds of Teutonic speech: "And the victory 
once won, be it now or be it one hundred years hence, there 
remains a task for the German than which none is more 
important, that of forcing the German tongue on the world. 
On all men, not those belonging to the more cultured races 
only, but on men of all colours and nationalities, the Ger- 
man language acts as a blessing which, coming direct from 
the hand of God, sinks into the heart like a precious balm 
and ennobles it. 

"English, the canting tongue of the canting island pi- 
rates, must be swept from the place it has usurped, and 
forced back into the remotest corners of Britain until it 
has returned to its original elements of an insignificant 
pirate dialect." ^ 

In the year 191 3 a book entitled German Chauvinism 
was published by Dr. Otfried Nippold exposing the warlike 
inclinations of his countrymen. He quotes numerous arti- 
cles from the War Press of Germany.* We content our- 
selves with the following — 

"A nation, which has increased so much as Germany 

* Resolution of the "American Rights Committee." Accord- 
ing to the Chemnitzcr Volksfimme, a pamphlet published anon- 
ymously at Berlin in 1895 under the title of Germania Triiimphans, 
foretold the partition of America "after an easy victory" in 
1912. 

' Blatchford, England and Germany, p. 9. 

' From the Deutsche Tageszeitung, quoted in the Textbook of 
the War for Americans, pp. 40-1. 

* "Der Deutsche Chauvinismus," 1913. The extracts are taken 
from The True Pastime, by Alexander Gray, where the reader 
will find a very large number of them. 



28 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

has done, is compelled to follow a policy of constant ex- 
pansion." ^ 

"A people which, like ourselves, is developing and striv- 
ing forwards, needs new territory for its forces, and if 
peace does not bring that, there remains only war." ^ 

"With the will to war there must also be bound up the 
resolution to adopt a ruthless offensive, because only an 
offensive guarantees the victory. . . . Germany must be 
ready for the attack; just as in 1870, her preparation must 
be so strong that she may be able, with superior forces, to 
transform, as in 1870, the will to war, if necessary, into 
military action." ^ 

"Let us at least learn this lesson from history, that an 
enormous wave of prosperity follows war and rests upon 
war, and that without warlike capacity the golden age of a 
nation can never endure. . . . The German people, by its 
history and its unexampled Kultur, has a well-founded 
claim to be heard in the world. With modesty you do not 
get very far. It is often nobler to give the answer with the 
sword." * 

"War is the most sublime and holiest expression of 
human activity. It affords the opportunity of sacrificing, 
in accordance with God's command, the highest possession 
for our brothers; it gives the hero everlasting life. We 
see this when on Sundays we go to the soldiers' church 
where we live. From the Prayer Book our eyes wander 
involuntarily to the tablet on the wall. There, over long 
lists of names, stand the words: 'The following died 
in the Lord on the field of battle fighting for their King 
and country.' . . . How we wish from Sunday to Sunday 
that our names may some day be written on these tablets! 
Then we would live for ever, still envied after the lapse of 
centuries. . . . For us also one day there will strike the 
great glad hour of battle. . . . The loudly expressed desire 

* Hamburger Nachrichten, January 19, 1913. 

^ General von Wrichen in the Danziger Neueste Nachrichten, 
May 6, 19 14. 
' General Klein, in Der Tag, of October 16, 1912. 

* Parmsfadter Tageblatt, April 23, 1913. 



THE CONCEPTION OF THE PLOT 29 

for war too often becomes vain boasting. . . . But, still 
and deep in the German heart, the joy in war and the 
longing for it must remain, because we have enemies 
enough, and victory is only for a people which with song 
and music goes into war as into a festival. . . . With all 
our power then let us laugh away those old women in 
men's clothes who fear war and go about complaining that 
it is horrible or hateful. No, war is beautiful. Its ma- 
jestic greatness lifts the human heart high above what is 
earthly and trivial." ^ 

"Western philosophers," as M. Dampierre says, "look 
upon war as an evil which is practically unavoidable, in 
order to settle disputes which would not otherwise be de- 
termined between nations; but they deny that this excep- 
tional course should be made use of to destroy a conquered 
people, and hold that the damage that is caused by war 
should be reduced to a minimum and confined as far as 
possible to the sphere of the military operations. German 
theorists, on the other hand, look upon war as the reflex 
of the vitality of a people, as a thing noble and beautiful 
in itself, and consider that its chief object is to increase 
the power of the victorious nation by destroying its rivals 
and by robbing them, as far as is possible, of all their 
advantages, thus placing the conqueror either wholly or 
partially in the position occupied by the conquered. Thus 
deprived of any moral, philosophical, or scientific charac- 
ter, this form of bellicose imperialism is reduced to a 
simple instinct of violence and plunder, which is the 
characteristic of every carnivorous animal. It is what 
the Germans themselves call 'Faustrecht,' or the 'reign 
of the fist,' but the curious point is that they should 
endow this violence with a kind of religious respect — with 
the mysticism of enthusiasts, regarding it as a normal 
manifestation of force, from which alone right can be 
created. Schiller and other great German writers exalted 
the glory of national war : 'Man wastes himself in peace' ; 
'An idle repose is the tomb of courage'; 'the law is the 
friend of the weak and would make all things equal . . , 

^ Jungdeutschland Post, February 25, 1913. 



30 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

but war brings force to the front . . . and gives heart 
even to the coward' (Die Braut von Messina').'^ 

No one, I think, who reads the above pages with an open 
mind and in the Hght of subsequent events, can fail to see 
that Germany had for years past been bent upon establish- 
ing her dominion by the sword over the rest of the world, 
that the atmosphere in Germany was charged with the war 
spirit, and that every preparation had been made which 
it was believed would ensure the consummation of her 
designs. 

To sum up the situation we will quote a few words from 
the article by Mr. Thomas G. Masaryk, referred to above 
(p. 22) :— 

"The Germans have stated clearly enough, both before 
and during hostilities, why they were looking forward to 
this war, and what they wish its result to be. The meaning 
of the present war is reflected in the voluminous political 
literature which propagates the Pangerman programme and 
the discussions which still centre round it. . . . 

"Pangermanism reached its highest point during the 
reign of the Emperor William II, growing into the political 
doctrine of German Imperialism, which proclaimed, in the 
first place, the need of economic and political union between 
Germany and Austria-Hungary, and of adding the Balkans 
and Turkey to this union. This plan is expressed in the 
watchword 'Central Europe,' which involves a further pro- 
gramme for the annexation of the Baltic and of some 
purely Russian provinces of Russia, and would thus pro- 
vide an opportunity for reconstructing Poland under Ger- 
man leadership. . . . 

"But the Pangermans also demand the annexation of non- 
German territories on grounds of 'Real-Politik.* Ger- 
many, they argue, needs colonies, needs a hinterland. 
They point to the growth of population, to the great 

^ L'Allemagne et le Droit des Gens, pp. 53-4. The expression 
"The law is the friend of the weak" is quoted from Schiller by 
both Bemhardi and Lasson. 



THE CONCEPTION OF THE PLOT 31 

number of emigrants, which weakens the German nation; 
they adduce the fact that Germany, who in 1871 had only 
41,000,000 inhabitants, now has 68,000,000. Anxiety con- 
cerning their daily bread forces them to extend their fron- 
tiers; Germany requires more land to cultivate, and must 
therefore simply take it. Hence the demands for the an- 
nexation of Holland and her colonies, the necessity of pos- 
sessing Antwerp, etc. . . . 

"The votaries of Pangermanism appeal to German in- 
clination for war; war is positively adored, and with that 
goes the worship of militarism. They tell us that Germans 
and Teutons are naturally gifted with the necessary con- 
structive statesmanlike ability; in the Slavs this abihty, 
according to them, is lacking, therefore the Slav States were 
founded, and subsequently annexed, by the Germans. 
But not only the Slavs, the French and other nations also 
were — according to these theorists — formed by the Germans 
just as even Christ Himself was of German origin.^ In a 
word, the whole world is and must be German. Panger- 
mans do not disguise the lust of power and the greed of 
Imperialism; they proclaim German aristocratism, social, 
political, cultural, racial, and linguistic, and carry it merci- 
lessly to its extreme logical results — Imperare, Regnare, 
over all the nations and lands. . . . 

"Even long before the war, Pangerman Imperialism 
dominated not only intellectual circles, but also wider 
classes of the population of Germany and Austria-Hungary, 
and supplied them with their political education. It is 
simply not true that only a few people participated and 
co-operated in Pangerman propaganda. The number of 
such writers is very great; Pangerman books and pam- 
phlets had, and still have to-day, a very large circulation 
and run through many editions. The Pangerman plan of 
'Berlin-Bagdad,' has been upheld by men like Moltke, List, 

*It is argued that the syllable Jes is identical with Ger, 
s and r being interchangeable, while the Latin masculine termi- 
nation us is equivalent to man in' the Teutonic languages. 
{Ein Pangermanisches Deutschland, by J. L. Reimer 1905, pp. 
232-3.) 



32 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

Rodbertus, W. Roscher, Lassalle, Lagarde, C. Frantz, 
Windhorst, etc. Pangerman ideas were propagated by 
energetic societies and clubs, notably the Allgemeine 
deutsche Verban (Pangerman League), 1890, Mitteleurop- 
aeischer Wirtschaftsverein (Central European Economic 
Union), 1904, and Vorderasien-Komitee (Asia Minor Com- 
mittee), 191 1 ; the latter was founded by Hugo Grothe, and 
among its Trustees are to be found such names as Ballin, 
von der Goltz Pasha, Karl Lamprecht, Hans Meyer, Cor- 
nelius Gurlitt, Dr. von Jacobs (President of the German 
Levant Line) and R. Willing. The Pangermans expressed 
explicitly and in plain language what the others expressed 
implicitly. . . . 

"The German plan, as expounded during the course of 
the war, has steadily progressed in the direction indicated. 
The weakening of Russia and the Slavs must be the first 
step, but the final stage is to be the overthrow of 
Britain. 

"Once Germany has achieved 'Central Europe,' the time 
for a blow at Britain would soon come. Germany with 
Austria-Hungary, the Balkans and Turkey at her disposal, 
has a free path to Egypt and India, and nothing could 
then stop her march into Holland and Belgium and the 
maritime north of France, if occasion should arise. Once 
Berlin-Bagdad and Berlin-Cairo became a reality, the 
power and riches yielded by this 'Central Europe' would 
perhaps even render the fight against Britain in Europe 
superfluous; moreover, the progress of aeronautics and 
the development of the navy would facilitate the invasion 
of England, if that were still required. The possession 
of Trieste, Salonica, and Constantinople would assure to 
'Central Europe' dominion over the Adriatic, ^gean and 
Mediterranean; Turkey would secure to Germany access 
to Africa and India, and Britain would collapse in pitiful 
isolation. . . . 

"If Berlin succeeds in creating 'Central Europe,' the aim 
of the war is attained, even if, at the worst, some time 
should elapse before the completion of the Constantinople- 
Bagdad and Constantinople-Cairo routes. 



THE CONCEPTION OF THE PLOT 33 

"If successful, Prussia-Germany would become an Asi- 
atic and African Power like Russia, Britain and France; 
nay more, she would become the greatest World-Power. 
Pangermanism is a programme for the final solution of the 
Eastern Question. The Great War is a daring attempt to 
organise Europe, Asia and Africa — the Old World — under 
the leadership of Germany." 



II 

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL MOMENT 

That the situation was causing anxiety to the French 
Government is evident from the following despatches pub- 
lished in the Yellow Book of 1913 — 

M. Etienne, Minister of War, to M. Jonnart, Minister 
for Foreign Affairs. 

Paris, April 2, 1913. 

I have just received from a reliable source an official 
secret report concerning the strengthening of the German 
Army. The report is divided into two parts: the first 
consisting of general statements, the second dealing with 
technicalities and describing in the greatest detail, for 
each branch of the service, the measures to be adopted. 
Especially striking are the instructions with regard to 
the employment of motor-traction and the utilisation of 
aircraft. 

I have the honour to enclose a copy of the first part of 
this document, which seems to merit your attention. 

Etienne. 

Memorandum on the Strengthening of the 
German Army. 

Berlin, March 19, 1913. 

I. — General Memorandum of the New Military Laws. 
The increase has taken place in three stages — 
(i) The Conference of Algegiras has removed the last 
doubt with regard to the existence of an Entente between 

34 



THE PSYCHOLOGICAL MOMENT 35 

France, Great Britain and Russia. Moreover, we have 
seen that Austria-Hungary was obliged to keep some of her 
forces mobilised against Serbia and Italy; finally, our fleet 
was not at that time sufficiently strong. At the end of the 
dispute the first matter taken in hand was the strengthening 
of our coast defences and the increase of our naval forces. 
To meet the British plan of sending an Expeditionary Force 
of 100,000 men to the Continent, it would be necessary to 
make a better formation of reserves to be used according 
to circumstances in the protection of the coast, in fortresses 
and in siege operations. It was already clear at that time 
that it would be absolutely necessary to make a great effort. 

(2) The French having violated the Morocco Conventions 
brought on the incident of Agadir. At that time the pro- 
gress made by the French army, the moral recovery of the 
nation, the technical advance in the realm of aviation and of 
machine guns rendered an attack on France less easy than 
in the previous period. Further, an attack by the British, 
fleet had to be considered. This difficult situation opened 
our eyes to the necessity for an increase in the army. This 
increase was from this moment considered as a minimum. 

(3) The war in the Balkans might have involved us in a 
war in support of our ally. The new situation in the south 
of Austria-Hungary lessened the value of the help which 
this ally could give us. On the other hand, France was 
strengthened by a new loi des cadres: it was accordingly 
necessary to anticipate the date of execution contemplated 
by the new military law. 

Public opinion is being prepared for a new increase in 
the active army, which would ensure Germany an honour- 
\ able peace and the possibility of properly ensuring her in- 
fluence in the affairs of the world. The new army law 
and the supplementary law, which should follow, will en- 
able her almost completely to attain this end. 

Neither ridiculous shriekings for revenge by French 
chauvinists, nor the Englishmen's gnashing of teeth, nor 
the wild gestures of the Slavs, will turn us from our aim 
of protecting and extending Deutschtum (German influ- 
ence) all the world over. 



36 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

The French may arm as much as they wish ; they cannot 
in one day increase their population. The employment of 
an army of black men in the theatre of European opera- 
tions will remain for a long time a dream, and in any case 
be devoid of beauty. 

II. — Aim and Obligations of our National Policy, of our 
Army, and of the Special Organisations for Army Purposes. 

Our new army law is only an extension of the military 
education of the German nation. Our ancestors of 1813 
made greater sacrifices. It is our sacred duty to sharpen 
the sword that has been put into our hands and to hold it 
ready for defence as well as for offence. We must allow 
the idea to sink into the minds of our people that our arma- 
ments are an answer to the armaments and policy of the 
French. We must accustom them to think that an offensive 
on our part is a necessity, in order to combat the provoca- 
tions of our adversaries. We must act with prudence so as 
not to arouse suspicion, and to avoid the crisis which might 
injure our economic existence. We must so manage mat- 
ters that under the heavy weight of powerful armaments, 
considerable sacrifices, and strained political relations, an 
outbreak (Losschlagen) should be considered as a relief, be- 
cause after it would come decades of peace and prosperity 
as after 1870. We must prepare for war from the financial 
point of view; there is much to be done in this direction. 
We must not arouse the distrust of our financiers, but there 
are many things which cannot be concealed. 

We must not be anxious about the fate of our colonies. 
The final result in Europe will settle their position. On the 
other hand we must stir up trouble in the north of Africa 
and in Russia. It is a means of keeping the forces of the 
enemy engaged. It is, therefore, absolutely necessary that 
we should open up relations, by means of well-chosen 
agents, with Influential people in Egypt, Tunis, Algeria and 
Morocco, In order to prepare the measures which would be 
necessary in the case of a European war. Of course. In 
case of war, we should openly recognise these secret allies; 
and, on the conclusion of peace, we should secure to them 



THE PSYCHOLOGICAL MOMENT 37 

the advantages which they had gained. These aims are 
capable of realisation. The first attempt, which was made 
some years ago, opened up for us the desired relations. 
Unfortunately these relations were not sufficiently consoli- 
dated. Whether we like it or not, it will be necessary to 
resort to preparations of this kind, in order to bring a 
campaign rapidly to a conclusion. 

Risings provoked in time of war by political agents need 
to be carefully prepared and by material means. They 
must break out simultaneously with the destruction of the 
means of communication; they must have a controlling 
head to be found among the influential leaders, religious or 
political. The Egyptian School is particularly suited to 
this purpose; more and more it serves as a bond between 
the intellectuals of the Mohammedan world. 

However this may be, we must be strong in order to 
annihilate at one powerful swoop our enemies in the east 
and west. But in the next European war it will also be 
necessary that the small States should be forced to follow 
us or be subdued. In certain conditions their armies and 
their fortified places can be rapidly conquered or neutral- 
ised; this would probably be the case with Belgium and 
Holland, so as to prevent our enemy in the west from gain- 
ing territory which they could use as a base of operations 
against our flank. In the north we have nothing to fear 
from Denmark or Scandinavia, especially as in any event 
we shall provide for the concentration of a strong northern 
army, capable of replying to any menace from this direc- 
tion. In the most unfavourable case, Denmark might be 
forced by Great Britain to abandon her neutrality; but by 
this time the decision would already have been reached 
both on land and on sea. Our northern army, the strength 
of which could be largely increased by Dutch formations, 
would oppose a very active defence to any offensive mea- 
sures from this quarter. 

In the south, Switzerland forms an extremely solid bul- 
wark, and we can rely on her energetically defending her 
neutrality against France, and thus protecting our flank. 

As was stated above, the situation with regard to the 



38 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

small States on our north-western frontier cannot be viewed 
in quite the same light. This will be a vital question for us, 
and our aim must be to take the offensive with a large 
superiority from the first days. For this purpose it will be 
necessary to concentrate a large army, followed up by 
strong Landwehr formations, which will induce the small 
States to follow us or at least to remain inactive in the 
theatre of operations, and which would crush them in the 
event of armed resistance. If we could induce these 
States to organise their system of fortification in such a 
manner as to constitute an effective protection for our 
flank, we could abandon the proposed invasion. But for 
this, army reorganisation, particularly in Belgium, would 
be necessary in order that it might really guarantee an 
effective resistance. If, on the contrary, their defensive 
organisation was established against us, thus giving definite 
advantages to our adversary in the west, we could in no 
circumstances offer Belgium a guarantee for the security 
of her neutrality. Accordingly, a vast field is open to our 
diplomacy to work in this country on the lines of our 
interests. 

The arrangements, made with this end in view, allow us 
to hope that it will be possible to take the offensive imme- 
diately after the complete concentration of the army of 
the Lower Rhine. An ultimatum with a short time-limit, 
to be followed immediately by invasion, would allow a suf- 
ficient justification for our action in international law. 

Such are the duties which devolve on our army and which 
demand a striking force of considerable numbers. If the 
enemy attacks us, or if we wish to overcome him, we will 
act as our brothers did a hundred years ago ; the eagle thus 
provoked will soar in his flight, will seize the enemy in 
his steel claws and render him harmless. We will then re- 
member that the provinces of the ancient German Empire, 
the County of Burgundy and a large part of Lorraine, are 
still in the hands of the French ; that thousands of brother 
Germans in the Baltic Provinces are groaning under the 
Slav yoke. It is a national question that Germany's for- 
mer possessions should be restored to her. 



THE PSYCHOLOGICAL MOMENT 39 

M. Allize, French Minister in Bavaria, to M. Stephen 
Pichon, Minister for Foreign Affairs. 

Munich, July lo, 1913. 

From a political point of view people are asking what 
is the object of the new armaments. Recognising that no 
one threatens Germany, they consider that German diplo- 
macy had already at its disposal forces sufficiently large 
and alliances sufficiently powerful to protect German inter- 
ests with success. As I pointed out the day after the Mo- 
rocco Agreement of 1911, it is thought that the Imperial 
Chancery will be as incapable in the future, as in the past, 
of adopting an active foreign policy and of achieving, at 
least in this sphere, successes which would justify the bur- 
dens which the nation has assumed. 

This frame of mind is all the more a cause of anxiety 
as the Imperial Government would find themselves sup- 
ported by public opinion in any enterprise on which they 
might energetically embark, even at the risk of a conflict. 
The state of war to which all the events in the east have 
accustomed people's minds for the last two years appears 
no longer like some distant catastrophe, but as a solution 
of the political and economic difficulties which will continue 
to increase. 

May the example of Bulgaria exercise a salutary influ- 
ence on Germany. As the Prince Regent recently said to 
me, "The fortune of war is always uncertain ; every war is 
an adventure, and the man Is a fool who risks it believing 
himself sure of victory." 

Allize. 

Report to M. Stephen Pichon, Minister for Foreign Affairs, 
on Public Opinion in Germany, according to the Re- 
ports of the Diplomatic and Consular Agents. 

Paris, July 30, 1913. 

People sometimes speak of a military party in Germany. 
The expression is inaccurate, even if it is intended to convey 



40 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

the idea that Germany is the country where mihtary power 
is supreme, as it is said of France that it is the country 
where the civil power is supreme. There exists a state of 
mind which is more worthy of attention than this historical 
fact, because it constitutes a danger more evident and more 
recent. There is a war party, with leaders, and followers, 
a press either convinced or subsidised for the purpose of 
creating public opinion ; it has means both varied and 
formidable for the intimidation of the Government. It 
goes to work in the country with clear ideas, burning as- 
pirations, and a determination that is at once thrilling and 
fixed. 

Those in favour of war are divided into several catego- 
ries, each of these derives from its social caste, its class, its 
intellectual and moral education, its interests, its hates, 
special arguments which create a general attitude of mind 
and increase the strength and rapidity of the stream of 
warlike desire. 

Some want war because in the present circumstances 
they think it is inevitable, and, as far as Germany is con- 
cerned, the sooner the better. 

Others regard war as necessary for economic reasons 
based on over-population, over-production, the need for 
markets and outlets; or for social reasons, i.e. to provide 
the outside interests that alone can prevent or retard the 
rise to power of the democratic and socialist masses. . . . 

Historians, philosophers, political pamphleteers and other 
apologists of German Kiiltur wish to impose upon the 
M^orld a way of thinking and feeling specifically German. 
They wish to wrest from France that intellectual suprem- 
acy which, according to the clearest thinkers, is still her 
possession. . . . 

We come finally to those whose support of the war policy 
is Inspired by rancour and resentment. These are the 
most dangerous. They are recntited chiefly among diplo- 
matists. . . . 

Must war then be considered as inevitable? 

It is hardly likely that Germany will take the risk if 
France can make it clear to the world that the Entente 



THE PSYCHOLOGICAL MOMENT 41 

Cordiale and the Russian alliance are not mere diplomatic 
fictions but realities which exist and will make themselves 
felt. The British fleet inspires a wholesome terror. It is 
well known, however, that victory on sea will leave every- 
thing in suspense. On land alone can a decisive issue be 
obtained. 

As for Russia, even though she carries greater weight 
in political and military circles than was the case three or 
four years ago, it is not believed that her co-operation will 
be sufficiently rapid and energetic to be effective. 

People's minds are thus getting used to consider the 
next war as a duel between France and Germany. 



M. Jules Cambon, French Ambassador at Berlin, to 
M. Stephen Pichon, Minister for Foreign Affairs. 

Berlin, November 22, 1913. 

I have received from an absolutely reliable source an 
account of a conversation which took place a fortnight ago 
between the Emperor and the King of the Belgians, in the 
presence of the Chief of the General Staff — General von 
Moltke. This conversation, it appears, has made a pro- 
found impression on King Albert. I am in no way sur- 
prised at the impression he gathered, which corresponds 
with what I have myself felt for some time. Enmity 
against us is increasing, and the Emperor has ceased to be 
the friend of peace. 

The Emperor's interlocutor had thought up till then, as 
did all the world, that William II, whose personal influence 
had been exerted on many critical occasions in support of 
peace, was still in the same state of mind. He found him 
this time completely changed. The German Emperor is 
no longer in his eyes the champion of peace against the 
warlike tendencies of certain parties in Germany. William 
II has come to think that war with France is inevitable, 
and that it must come sooner or later. Naturally he be- 
lieves in the crushing superiority of the German army and 
in its certain success. 



42 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

General von Moltke spoke exactly in the same strain 
as his sovereign. He, too, declared war to be necessary 
and inevitable, but he showed himself still more assured 
of success: "For," he said to the King, "this time the 
matter must be settled, and your Majesty can have no 
conception of the irresistible enthusiasm with which the 
whole German people will be carried away when that day 
comes," . . . 

For the rest, the Emperor William is less master of 
his impatience than is usually supposed. I have known 
him more than once to allow his real thoughts to escape 
him. Whatever may have been the object of the conver- 
sation related to me, the revelation is none the less of 
extreme gravity. It tallies with the precariousness of the 
general situation and with the state of a certain shade of 
public opinion in France and Germany. 

If I may be allowed to draw a conclusion, I would sub- 
mit that it would be well to take account of this new factor, 
namely, that the Emperor is becoming used to an order 
of ideas which were formerly repugnant to him, and that, 
to borrow from him a phrase which he likes to use, "we 
must keep our powder dry." 

Jules Cambon. 

Indeed both the "situation" and the temperament of the 
people made war inevitable. 

"If war, and a war of conquest, was considered from all 
time by Germany as a sacred right of the nations, if the 
expansion of Germanism appeared to her as a superior 
mission at the same time as an economic necessity, if the 
present state of the world rendered this expansion difficult 
for the future outside Europe, without provoking conflicts, 
in which Germany would not be able to make use of the 
whole of her power, it was logical that, in order to realise 
what she considered to be a right and a duty, Germany 
should let loose on Europe this world-war which alone 
would permit her to solve at the same time all the questions 
in suspense." * 

^ L'Allemagne et Ic Droit dcs Gens, p. 83?- 



THE PSYCHOLOGICAL MOMENT 43 

"It would be unjust to attribute the responsibility of 
1914 to the Emperor William, to the Crown Prince or to 
any political or social coterie in Prussia, or to look for any 
particular person as responsible for the repeated violations 
of the rights of nations or International law such as have 
been committed during this war by the German troops. 
The fact Is, that the whole of the German people were 
awaiting for two generations at least, as they might have 
been looking for a Messiah, the moment when a world-war 
would allow them to repair the 'injustice of international 
treaties' (see Tannenberg, Gross-Deutschland, pp. 23, 88). 
Imbued with the idea that for the Fatherland everything is 
permitted, that might Is above right or rather creates it, 
and that the duty of the strong is to employ every possible 
means to reduce or eliminate the weak, their people, having 
become an armed nation, has merely transformed into 
action the conceptions which have been passed down to It 
from one generation to another, and Inculcated Into the 
mind of every individual from his childhood. The logic 
natural to the masses has In this case strengthened the ef- 
fects of superior organisation In such a way that from the 
Commander-in-Chief down to the last 'Landwehrsmann,' 
or from 'His Excellency' down to the humblest teacher, 
there Is from this point of view in Germany at the present 
day, the most remarkable national unanimity. It is to the 
nation to which one must look; for the nation is Itself 
responsible for the principles of Its civilisation." ^ 

"From the year 1890 onwards it became generally more 
and more impossible for a German to have his eyes not 
forcibly focussed upon the glories of the House of Hohen- 
zollern, of Prussian victories, and the commercial glories of 
the German Empire under the Prussian hegemony. It has 
become increasingly difficult, it has become almost impos- 
sible for a German child to have any sense of the relative 
values to the world of the progress or the exploits of any 
other nation. Since 1890 it has been rendered Impos- 
sible for any German child to echo Bismarck's phrase: 

^ L'Allemagne et le Droit des Gens, pp. 61-2. 



44 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

'Germany Is great, but the world is greater than Germany' ; 
for the German child is taught to think that though the 
universe may be great and important, greater and more 
important are the German Empire and its destinies." ^ 

"The speeches of public men, from the Kaiser down- 
wards, the proceedings of Parliament, the newspapers and 
periodicals, the lectures of professors, the works of histo- 
rians, the schemes of commercial enterprise, the scale of 
military preparation, the building of great canals and rail- 
ways, the scale of armaments, the very type and capacity 
of the ships and airships, have made it abundantly clear 
for many years what Germany aimed at and how she pro- 
posed to secure it. There is nothing in all history of the 
same character, or conceived on the same vastness, or pre- 
pared with the same scientific completeness and thorough- 
ness, as this German scheme for world-power." ^ 

Only two things were wanting, the "psychological mo- 
ment" spoken of by Bernhardi, and some sort of pretext 
for the "attack." Germany believed that the "psychologi- 
cal moment" and consequently the moment for action had 
come in the spring of 19 14. She thought that England was 
on the verge of civil war over the Irish question. She had 
been advised by her agents and spies distributed over India, 
Egypt, and the British Colonies that they had succeeded in 
preparing the populations for revolt, and she believed that 
the French and Russian people were divided like the 
English, against themselves, and that their armies were 
disorganised.^ 

"The Anglo-Irish difficulties, the Canadian-Hindu trou- 
bles, the sensational disclosures in the French Chamber as 
to the bad condition of the army, the alleged deficiencies 
in the French aeroplane squadrons, the only partial recovery 

^Ford Madox Hueffer, When Blood is their Argument, pp. 
211-12. 

' Sir P. Fitzpatrick, Germany's Designs on South Africa, pp. 
65-6. 

*"Occasione discordiae nostrse et civilium armorum . . . Gallias 
adfectavere" (Profiting by our discord and civil strife, they {the 
Germans'] aspired to the conquest of the provinces of Gaul). Taci- 
tus, Ger mania, 37. 



THE PSYCHOLOGICAL MOMENT 45 

of Russia from the effects of the Japanese war, the exhaus- 
tion of the Balkan States themselves from their recent 
wars, even the preoccupation of the United States with 
troubles in Mexico, all seemed to preclude the chance of 
a general interference." * 

The following is the situation that Tannenberg, writing 
in 191 1, predicted would ensue on the outbreak of the 
Great War — 

'The occupation of Prague by the Germans is followed 
by a declaration of war by France. On the same day 
Russia decrees the mobilisation of her armies. England 
awaits developments. Things never go better with England 
than when the Powers of Continental Europe are waging 
war against one another. To furnish the two parties with 
arms and provisions is a harvest that she has not been 
able to reap for a long time. England will be careful not 
to lose, by declaring either for one party or the other, so 
exceptional an opportunity of augmenting her riches. 
When peace is concluded, she will know how to put herself 
in the front. She remembers that the war of 1870-71 
enabled her to seize Egypt, and she hopes that the founda- 
tion of Greater Germany will mean to her a new increase 
of power. . . . Germany will send against Russia an army 
of a million soldiers. The struggle will take place in the 
Baltic Provinces. . . . The Russians will gradually aban- 
don these territories, that in population are foreign to them, 
and will retire on Moscow ; but the German armies will not 
follow them in the forests and marshes of Russia. They 
will be content to occupy the territories which we may 
be sure will be permanently acquired. It is to the west 
that Germany will send the greater part of her forces. 
Eight days after the declaration of war by France, four 
millions of German soldiers will cross what, until now, has 
formed the eastern frontier of this country. The news 
from the east, including the declaration of war by the Jap- 
anese (against Russia), the insurrection of the Poles and 
the revolution in Russia which again makes its appearance 

^A Textbook of the War for Americans, pp. 135-6. See also 
Pan-Germanism, by Professor Usher. 



46 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

— all these circumstances crush in France the courage 
which she showed at the beginning of the war in 1870. . . . 
Forty years of Republican regime have ended by depriving 
the French youth of its last remnant of warlike zeal, of the 
spirit of sacrifice and of subordination. Nobody now 
wishes to sacrifice his ego to the demands of duty. Folly 
and cowardice rival each other. The suspicion of treachery 
again arises in the soul of the French soldier. The for- 
tresses, from which the French expected so much, no lon- 
ger resist the attacks of the German airship. . . . 

"The north and east of France are occupied. After a 
success achieved by the German fleet. . . . Paris does not 
even attempt to defend itself. . . . Italy declares war on 
France, and it becomes certain that England will never 
think of taking an active part in the struggle. Wares paid 
for in good money — cannons, guns and munitions — yes, 
but soldiers, no. Where could she get them, if she wanted 
to send them? India is only waiting for the propitious 
moment to shake off the English yoke. The Hindu stu- 
dents of Bengal assassinate the high English function- 
aries. In Egypt there is a like crisis. The cry of the der- 
vishes is heard afar, 'Egypt for the Egyptians!' In the 
newspapers of Australia, people discuss what will be the 
best thing to do in case of England's defeat — to group the 
Australian States together in an autonomous confedera- 
tion, or attach them to the United States of America on 
account of the open threats of Japan. Canada finds itself 
in the presence of similar circumstances, and the newspa- 
pers give every day details as to the disquieting increase in 
the number of Mongolians established at Vancouver and 
in British Columbia. The King and the English Parlia- 
ment congratulate themselves that they have to take no 
part in the struggle. 

"The French nation is seized with profound discourage- 
ment. All their hopes disappear. Russia has failed them. 
The Czech lion lies on the ground garotted, guarded by the 
men of the German Landwehr. . . . Italy occupies the 
Savoy, Nice and Corsica. England and America talk of 
business, but not of fighting. 



THE PSYCHOLOGICAL MOMENT 47 

"Events follow one another rapidly. The Germans be- 
siege St. Petersburg . . . the Germans occupy Paris and 
advance along the Loire. Holland and Belgium request 
to be admitted into the German Empire as confederate 
States with all their colonies. The offer is accepted, but not 
without reserves. Who would think of preventing vic- 
torious Germany from declaring these countries part of the 
Empire unconditionally? Questions of detail as to their 
admission will form the subject of subsequent discussions at 
Berlin. One thing is certain, and that is that the colonies 
of these two States, for motives of general right, must 
become, not the private property of a confederate State, 
but part of the colonial dominion of the whole Empire. . . , 
Peace negotiations with France will take place at Brussels, 
which town in future will be called 'Brussel.' The ancient 
Brussels will disappear for ever. The war must leave the 
conquered nothing but eyes with which to weep. Modesty 
on our part would be pure folly." ^ 

Elsewhere, with reference to the future conquest of 
Britain, the same writer says: "We shall not have to deal 
with the whole of the Anglo-Saxon race, but only with 
England. The United States are a country in themselves. 
Perhaps even they would be in our favour, because they 
must realise that after England had been defeated they 
would have the leadership of the Anglo-Saxon race in the 
Colonies. . , . And moreover, the support of the Colonies 
is a very doubtful matter. If England goes under in the 
European war the English Colonies will show the greatest 
eagerness to detach themselves from the Mother Country 
and institute a home government. The United States 
will occupy Canada, which is their neighbour; the South 
Africans will become Boers; Australia and New Zealand 
will form a Republic on the model of the United States. 
England knows perfectly well what she has to expect from 
her Colonies. England is defending in the Colonies the 
money that she has put there. The inhabitants of the 

* Gross-Deutschland, pp. 234-7. One is forcibly reminded of a 
certain story in The Arabian Nights, that of "The Barber's Fifth 
Brother." 



48 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

Colonies have but little interest in her. Their own affairs 
come first. For Australia and Canada the Mongolian ques- 
tion is more important than all the European wars into 
which England might be drawn." ^ 

But for the present the best course would be to bribe 
England to stand aside. ^ Nothing would be easier, as 
Tannenberg thought. "It is England's treachery to which 
she owes her greatness. I admire England and her policy. 
One of the means to which she has recourse, in the applica- 
tion of this principle of treachery, is the frequent change 
of the party in power. When an enemy nation offers more 
than a friendly one, the Ministry resigns, the King sends 
the statesmen about their business and orders new elec- 
tions. Then the other party is victorious. A new Min- 
istry comes into power and institutes a new policy. . . . 
The English are first-rate men of business ! How would it 
be, then, if we try to make it clear once more that a change 
of policy would be advantageous to them. In order to 
effect that, all we have to do is to bid higher than our 
adversary France. I only mention France because, in the 
general opinion of the German people, it is to France that 
we must look for the origin of all the evils of which we 
have been victims for the last forty years. Our other ad- 
versaries are only the borrowers and obedient debtors of 
the universal banker. King Edward the Irreconcilable is 
dead! Long live George V! It may be that he will try 
something else." ^ 

The circumstances which appeared to authorise the belief 
in Germany that the time for action had come, have been 
well described by Dr. Dillon. He points out the falsity of 
the conclusions she drew from those circumstances, with 
regard to England, in the following words — 

"In all these close calculations the decisive element of 
national character was left out, with the consequences we 
see. Despite their powers of observation and analysis, 
the Germans, even those who are gifted and experienced, 

* Gross-Deutschland, pp. 178-9. 

*An attempt was actually made, see p. 91. 

' Gross-Deutschland, pp. 192-3. 



THE PSYCHOLOGICAL MOMENT 49 

are devoid of some indefinable inner sense, without which 
they must ever lack true insight into the soul-stuff, the 
dormant qualities of the people whose wrath they have 
wantonly aroused. To the realm of British thought and 
feeling they, with their warped psychological equipment, 
find no access. Its secondary characteristics they grasp 
with their noted thoroughness and seek to practise upon 
with their traditional cynicism. But the deeper springs of 
our race-character, its (clear-souled faith, its masculine 
vigour, and its vast reserve of elemental force, lie beyond 
their narrow range of vision. To the sentient and percep- 
tive powers even of the most acute German observer, the 
workings of the British soul, its inherited nobilities, its deep 
moral feelings, are inaccessible. . . . Herr von Kuhlmann 
in particular had made a complete survey of the situation 
in Ireland, and his exhaustive report was corroborated by 
emphatic statements of a like tenor received from independ- 
ent witnesses, whose duty it was to collect data on the spot. 
Utterances of public men and influential private individuals 
in the country were reported in full. Plans, dates, num- 
bers, were set down with scrupulous care. . . . Even the 
suffragette movement was included in this comprehensive 
survey, and was classed among the fetters which must 
handicap the British Cabinet, should it display any velleity 
to join hands with France and Russia." ^ 

"The blundering incapacity of the Kaiser's counsellors 
and servants in statecraft at Berlin and in foreign capitals 
committed Germany to a war against the joined might of 
England, France and Russia. . . . 

"Wilhelm II was wretchedly served at Vienna by an 
Ambassador blinded by Russophobia; at St. Petersburg by 
another who advised his Home Government that Rus- 
sia would not go to war; and at London by the muddling 
Lichnowsky, whose first guesses were commonly wrong 
and his second too late to be serviceable. Germany 
literally forced an alliance for this war between England 
and Russia, two Powers often antagonistic in the past 
and having now no common interest save the curbing of 

* A Scrap of Paper, pp. 143-4. 



60 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

Germany. The terrible mis judgment of the General 
Staff hurled Germany headlong into the pit that incom- 
petent diplomacy had prepared. The Empire went to war 
with three great nations able to meet her with forces more 
than double her own." * 

The German newspaper Der Tag ^ confesses the blunder 
in the following words — 

"So many of our calculations have deceived us. We 
expected that British India would rise when the first shot 
was fired in Europe, but in reality thousands of Indians 
came to fight with the British against us. We anticipated 
that the whole British Empire would be torn to pieces, 
but the Colonies appear to be closer tmited than ever with 
the Mother Country. We expected a triumphant rebel- 
lion in South Africa, yet it turned out nothing but a failure. 
We expected trouble in Ireland, but, instead, she sent her 
best soldiers against us. We anticipated that the party 
of 'peace at any price' would be dominant in England, 
but it melted away in the ardour to fight against Germany. 
We reckoned that England was degenerate and incapable 
of placing any weight in the scale, but she seems to be our 
principal enemy. 

"The same has been the case with France and Russia. 
We thought that France was depraved and divided, and 
we found that she is a formidable opponent. We believed 
that the Russian people were far too discontented to fight 
for their Government, ^ and we made our plans on the sup- 
position of a rapid collapse of Russia; but, instead, she 
mobilised her millions quickly and well, and her people are 
full of enthusiasm, and their power is crushing. Those 
who led us into all these mistakes and miscalculations have 
laid upon themselves a heavy responsibility." 

Thus it was hoped and believed in Germany that England 

* The New York Times, December 15, 1914. 

* Quoted in The Times of April 16, 1915. 

""It is clear that Austria did not at first believe that Russia 
would or could fight. On July 24 the German Ambassador at 
Vienna told our own Ambassador that this was also Germany's 
opinion." — T. A. Cook, Kaiser, Krupp and Kiiltur, p. 131. 



THE PSYCHOLOGICAL MOMENT 51 

would stand aloof until France and Russia had been dis- 
posed of. It was realised that Germany's navy was nof 
yet in a position to cope successfully with that of Great 
Britain. It was still felt that under present circumstances 
"the last settlement, the settlement with England," as Pro- 
fessor Treitschke wrote, "would probably be the lengthiest 
and most difficult." ^ But when the countries of Continen- 
tal Europe had been practically reduced to German depend- 
encies; when Calais, Cherbourg, and Antwerp had been 
converted into German ports and fortresses, the days of the 
British Empire would be numbered. 

* Deutsche Kdmpfe. 



Ill 

THE PRETEXT 

So in the spring the final details of the preparations were 
seen to. During March, April and May, large numbers of 
horses were bought in Ireland and various parts of unsus- 
pecting England, and exported to Germany. Large quanti- 
ties of grain were shipped to Hamburg for the use of the 
troops, and mobilisation was already secretly begun, in the 
early summer, both in Germany and Austria. 

The "pretext" was furnished by the murder of the 
•Austrian Archduke Ferdinand and his morganatic wife, 
at Sarajevo, on Austrian territory, on June 28, 1914, by 
two Bosniaks, both Austrian subjects. One of them, ac- 
cording to a statement made by the Serbian Minister in 
London to the British Under-Secretary of State for Foreign 
Affairs, had been previously regarded as a dangerous char- 
acter by the Serbian authorities, who had accordingly 
wished to expel him from Serbia; but he was protected by 
the Austrian authorities on the plea that he was an innocent 
and harmless person. According to a statement made by 
the German Socialist leader, Herr Liebknecht, in the 
Reichstag, on March 16, 191 5 — amid great tumult — there 
were wide circles in Germany and Austria who regarded 
the Sarajevo murder as a "gift from God," so opportunely 
did it occur. 

The Austrian Government, supported beyond all doubt 
by the German Government, elected to fix the respon- 
sibility for this crime, committed by Austrian subjects, on 
the Serbian Government, and on July 2^ sent them 
an ultimatum, requiring them to make a humiliat- 

52 



THE PRETEXT 53 

ing declaration, of which the following were the principal 
clauses : — 

"The Royal Serbian Government undertake — 
"To remove from the military service, and from the 
administration in general, all officers and functionaries 
guilty of propaganda against the Austro-Hungarian 
monarchy, whose names and deeds the Austro-Hungarian 
Government reserve to themselves the right of commu- 
nicating to the Royal Government: To accept the 
collaboration in Serbia of representatives of the Austro- 
Hungarian Government for the suppression of the sub- 
versive movement directed against the territorial integrity 
of the monarchy : To take judicial proceedings against ac- 
cessories to the plot of June 28 who are on Serbian terri- 
tory. Delegates of the Austro-Hungarian Government will 
take part in the investigation relating thereto." 

Serbia was thus summoned to admit that she had par- 
ticipated in a crime with which, so far as any evidence 
went, she had had nothing to do ; to dismiss all her leading 
men, soldiers or statesmen, who might stand in the way of 
Austria's plans, and to allow Austrian delegates to sit in 
Serbian tribunals. She was, in fact, required to sign away 
her independence and acknowledge herself as Austria's 
vassal, or submit to the consequences of her refusal. In 
her helplessness — in the hope of saving herself from the 
horrors of invasion by a ruthless enemy — she replied, 
within the appointed time of forty-eight hours, practically 
accepting all the terms of the ultimatum with one reserva- 
tion, namely, that: "As regards the participation in this 
inquiry of Austro-Hungarian agents or authorities, ap- 
pointed for this purpose by the Imperial and Royal Govern- 
ment [of Austria], the Royal Government [of Serbia] can- 
not accept such an agreement, as it would be a violation 
of the constitution and of the law of criminal procedure." 
And it was added that: "If the Imperial and Royal 
Government are not satisfied with this reply, the Serbian 
Government, considering that it is not to the common 
interest to precipitate the solution of this question, are 
ready, as always, to accept a pacific understanding, either 



54 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

by referring this question to the decision of the Interna- 
tional Tribunal of the Hague or to the Great Powers who 
took part in the drawing up of the Declaration made by the 
Serbian Government on the i8th (31st) March, 1909." 

This reply was couched in the most conciliatory and 
humble terms; but the Austrian Government preferred to 
consider it unsatisfactory. The gravity of the situation 
lay in the fact that, on the one hand, Austria was being 
supported, if not directly encouraged, by her ally and vir- 
tual dictatress, Germany, while on the other, an appeal 
by Serbia to the Tsar of Russia as the Protector of the 
Slav interests could not be without avail ; and France was 
in close alliance with Russia. ^ The Crown Prince of 
Serbia had already, on the 24th July, telegraphed to the 
Tsar: "We may be attacked at the expiration of the 
time-limit by the Austro-Hungarian army, which is con- 
centrating upon our frontiers. We are unable to defend 
ourselves, and we beg Your Majesty to come to our aid 
as soon as possible." 

The events which followed, and the efforts which were 
made by the four Great Powers — England, France, Italy 
and Russia — to preserve the peace and ward off the appal- 
ling catastrophe with which the Central Powers were 
threatening Europe, may be learnt in brief from the follow- 
ing extracts from the diplomatic correspondence which 
took place subsequently to the despatch of the ultimatum 
to Serbia. 

^The following passage occurs in the German White Book, 
dated Berlin, 1914: "We were perfectly aware that a possible 
warlike attitude of Austria-Hungary against Serbia might bring 
Russia upon the field, and that it might involve us in a war in 
accordance with our duty as allies. We could not, however, . . . 
advise our ally to take up a yielding attitude . . . nor deny him 
our assistance in these trying days." "This statement is particu- 
larly important as contradicting the assurance given by Prince 
Lichnowsky, German Ambassador in London, to Sir E. Grey, that 
'the German Government were endeavouring to hold back and 
moderate the Cabinet of Vienna,' on July 21, 1914. Both are given 
in the British Official 'Collected Documents Relating to the Out- 
break of the European War,' pp. 151, 406." — H. W. Wilson in the 
National Review, January, 1917. 



THE PRETEXT 55 

M. Jules Camhon, French Ambassador at Berlin, to 
M. Bienvenu-Martifij Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs. 

Berlin, July 24, 1914. 

I asked the Secretary of State to-day, in the interview 
which I had with him, if it was correct, as announced in 
the newspapers, that Austria had presented a note to the 
Powers on her dispute with Servia; if he had received it; 
and what view he took of it. 

Herr von Jagow answered me in the affirmative, adding 
that the note was forcible, and that he approved it, the 
Servian Government having for a long time past wearied 
the patience of Austria. Moreover, he considers this ques- 
tion to be a domestic one for Austria, and he hopes that it 
will be localised. 

I then said to him that not having as yet received any 
instructions, the views which I wished to exchange with 
him were strictly personal. Thereupon I asked him if the 
Berlin Cabinet had really been entirely ignorant of Aus- 
tria's requirements before they were communicated to Bel- 
grade, and as he told me that that was so, I showed him my 
surprise at seeing him thus undertake to support claims, 
of whose limit and scope he was ignorant, 

Herr von Jagow interrupted me, and said, *Tt is only 
because we are having a personal conversation that I allow 
you to say that to me." 

"Certainly," I replied, "but if Peter I humiliates himself, 
domestic trouble will probably break out in Servia; that 
will open the door to fresh possibilities, and do you know 
where you will be led by Vienna?" I added that the 
language of the German newspapers was not the language 
of persons who were indifferent to, and unacquainted with, 
the question, but betokened an active support. Finally, 
I remarked that the shortness of the time-limit given to 
Servia for submission would make an unpleasant impres- 
sion in Europe. . . . 

Jules Cambon.^ 



56 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

M. Paul Cambon, French Ambassador at London, to 
M. Bienvenu-Martin, Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs. 

London, July 24, 191 4. 

Sir Edward Grey having discussed with me his desire 
to leave no stone unturned to avert the crisis, we agreed in 
thinking that the British Cabinet might ask the German 
Government to take the initiative in approaching Vienna 
with the object of offering the mediation, between Austria 
and Servia, of the four Powers which are not directly in- 
terested. If Germany agrees, time will be gained, and this 
is the essential point. 

Sir Edward Grey told me that he would discuss with 
Prince Lichnowsky the proposal I have just explained. I 
mentioned the matter to my Russian colleague, who is 
afraid of a surprise from Germany, and who imagines that 
Austria would not have despatched her ultimatum without 
previous agreement with Berlin. 

Count Benckendorff told me that Prince Lichnowsky 
when he returned from leave about a month ago, had 
intimated that he held pessimistic views regarding the 
relations between St. Petersburgh and Berlin. He had 
observed the uneasiness caused in this latter capital by 
the rumours of a naval entente between Russia and Great 
Britain, by the Tsar's visit to Bucharest, and by the 
strengthening of the Russian army. Count Benckendorff 
had concluded from this that a war with Russia would be 
looked upon without disfavour in Germany. 

The Under-Secretary of State has been struck, as all of 
us have been, by the anxious looks of Prince Lichnowsky 
since his return from Berlin, and he considers that if Ger- 
many had wished to do so she could have stopped the 
despatch of the ultimatum. 

The situation, therefore, is as grave as it can be, and we 
see no way of arresting the course of events. 

However, Count Benckendorff thinks it right to attempt 
the demarche upon which I have agreed with Sir Edward 
Grey. 

Paul Cambon. 



THE PRETEXT 57 

M. Jules Camhon, French Minister at Berlin, to 
M. Bienvenu-Martin, Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs. 

Berlin, July 25, 1914. 

The Belgian Minister appears very anxious about the 
course of events. 

He is of opinion that Austria and Germany have desired 
to take advantage of the fact that, owing to a combina- 
tion of circumstances at the present moment, Russia and 
England appear to them to be threatened by domestic 
troubles, while in France the state of the army is under 
discussion. Moreover, he does not believe in the pretended 
ignorance of the Government of Berlin on the subject of 
Austria's demarche. 

He thinks that if the form of it has not been submitted 
to the Cabinet at Berlin, the moment of its despatch has 
been cleverly chosen in consultation with that Cabinet, 
in order to surprise the Triple Entente at a moment of 
disorganisation. 

He has seen the Italian Ambassador, who has just inter- 
rupted his holiday in order to return. It looks as if Italy 
would be surprised, to put it no higher, at having been kept 
out of the whole affair by her two allies. 

Jules Cambon. 

M. de Fleuriau, French Charge d' Affaires at London, to 
M. Bienvenu-Martin, Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs. 

London, July 25, 1914. 
The German Ambassador came to the Foreign Office to 
state that his Government would refuse to interfere in the 
dispute between Austria and Servia. 

M. Bienvenu-Martin, Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs, 
to the French Ambassadors at London, St. Peters- 
burgh, Berlin, Vienna, Rome. 

Paris, July 2y, 1914. 

The Austro-Hungarian Ambassador came to see me to 
hand me a memorandum which amounted to an indict- 
ment of Servia. . . . 



58 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

I then called the Ambassador's attention to the fact that 
Servia had accepted Austria's requirements on practically 
every point, and that the differences that remained on 
certain points might vanish with a little mutual goodwill, 
and with the help of the Powers who wished for peace; 
by fixing to-morrow as the date for putting her resolution 
into effect, Austria for the second time was making their 
co-operation practically im.possible, and was assuming a 
grave responsibility in running the risk of precipitating a 
war the limits of which it was impossible to foresee. 

I enclose for your information the memorandum ths^ 
Count Scezsen handed to me. 

Bienvenu-Martin. 



Sir E. Goschen, British Ambassador at Berlin, to 
Sir Edward Grey. 

{Received July 2^.) 

(Telegraphic.) Berlin, July 27, 1914. 

Your telegram of 26th July. 

Secretary of State says that conference you suggest 
would practically amount to a court of arbitration and could 
not, in his opinion, be called together except at the request 
of Austria and Russia. He could not therefore fall in with 
your suggestion, desirous though he was to co-operate for 
the maintenance of peace. I said I was sure that your idea 
had nothing to do with arbitration, but meant that rep- 
resentatives of the four nations not directly interested 
should discuss and suggest means for avoiding a dangerous 
situation. He maintained, however, that such a conference 
as you proposed was not practicable. He added that news 
he had just received from St. Petersburgh showed that there 
was an intention on the part of M. de Sazonof ^ to ex- 
change views with Count Berchtold.^ He thought that this 
method of procedure might lead to a satisfactory result, 
and that it would be best, before doing anything else, to 

* Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs. 

* Austro-Hungarian Minister for Foreign Affairs. 



THE PRETEXT 59 

await outcome of the exchange of views between the Aus- 
trian and Russian Governments. 

In the course of a short conversation Secretary of State 
said that as yet Austria was only partially mobilising, but 
that if Russia mobilised against Germany latter would 
have to follow suit. I asked him what he meant by "mo- 
bilising against Germany." He said that if Russia only 
mobilised in south, Germany would not mobilise, but if she 
mobilised in north, Germany would have to do so too, 
and Russian system of mobilisation was so complicated 
that it might be difficult exactly to locate her mobilisation. 
Germany would therefore have to be very careful not to be 
taken by surprise. 

Finally, Secretary of State said that news from St. 
Petersburgh had caused him to take more hopeful view 
of the general situation. 

Sir M. de Bunsen, British Ambassador at Vienna, to 
Sir Edward Grey. 

{Received July 28.) 

(Telegraphic.) Vienna, July 28, 1914. 

I saw Minister for Foreign Affairs this morning. 

His Excellency declared that Austria-Hungary cannot 
delay warlike proceedings against Servia, and would have 
to decline any suggestion of negotiations on basis of Servian 
reply. 

Prestige of Dual Monarchy was engaged, and nothing 
could now prevent conflict. 

Sir Edward Grey to Sir E. Goschen, British Ambassador 

at Berlin. 

(Telegraphic.) Foreign Office, July 28, 1914. 

German Government, having accepted principle of 
mediation between Austria and Russia by the four Powers, 
if necessary, I am ready to propose that the German Secre- 
tary of State should suggest the lines on which this principle 



60 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

should be applied. I will, however, keep the idea in reserve 
until we see how the conversations between Austria and 
Russia progress. 

Sir E. Goschen, British Ambassador at Berlin, to 
Sir Edward Grey. 

{Received July 2p.) 
(Telegraphic.) Berlin, July 28, 191 4. 

At invitation of Imperial Chancellor, I called upon his 
Excellency this evening. He said that he wished me to 
tell you that he was most anxious that Germany should work 
together with England for maintenance of general peace, 
as they had done successfully in the last European crisis. 
He had not been able to accept your proposal for a con- 
ference of representatives of the Great Powers, because he 
did not think that it would be effective, and because such 
a conference would in his opinion have had appearance of 
an "Areopagus" consisting of two Powers of each group 
sitting in judgment upon the two remaining Powers; but 
his inability to accept proposed conference must not be 
regarded as militating against his strong desire for effective 
co-operation. You could be assured that he was doing his 
very best both at Vienna and St. Petersburgh to get the 
two Governments to discuss the situation directly with 
each other and in a friendly way. He had great hopes 
that such discussions would take place and lead to a satis- 
factory result, but if the news were true which he had just 
read in the papers, that Russia had mobilised fourteen army 
corps in the south, he thought situation was very serious, 
and he himself would be in a very difficult position, as in 
these circumstances it would be out of his power to con- 
tinue to preach moderation at Vienna. He added that 
Austria, who as yet was only partially mobilising, would 
have to take similar measures, and if war were to result, 
Russia would be entirely responsible. I ventured to say 
that if Austria refused to take any notice of Servian note, 
which, to my mind, gave way in nearly every point de- 
manded by Austria, and which in any case offered a basis 



THE PRETEXT 61 

for discussion, surely a certain portion of responsibility- 
would rest with her. His Excellency said that he did not 
wish to discuss Servian note, but that Austria's standpoint, 
and in this he agreed, was that her quarrel with Servia 
was a purely Austrian concern with which Russia had 
nothing to do. He reiterated his desire to co-operate with 
England and his intention to do his utmost to maintain 
general peace. "A war between the Great Powers must 
be avoided" were his last words. 

Austrian colleague said to me to-day that a general war 
was most unlikely, as Russia neither wanted nor was in a 
position to make war. I think that that opinion is shared 
by many people here. 



M. Jules Camhon, French Ambassador at Berlin, to 
M. Bienvenu-Martin, Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs. 

Berlin^ July 27, 1914. 

I had a conversation to-day with the Secretary of State 
and gave support to the demarche which Sir E. Goschen 
had just made. 

Herr von Jagow replied to me, as he had to the British 
Ambassador, that he could not accept the proposal that 
the Italian, French and German Ambassadors should be 
instructed to endeavour to find with Sir Edward Grey a 
method of resolving the present difficulties, because that 
would be to set up a real conference to deal with the affairs 
of Austria and Russia. 

I replied to Herr von Jagow that I regretted his answer, 
but that the great object which Sir Edward Grey had in 
view went beyond any question of form; that what was 
important was the co-operation of Great Britain and 
France with Germany and Italy in a work of peace; that 
this co-operation could take effect through common de- 
marches at St. Petersburgh and at Vienna; that he had 
often expressed to me his regret at seeing the two allied 
groups always opposed to one another in Europe ; that there 
was here an opportunity of proving that there was a Euro- 



62 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

pean spirit, by showing four Powers belonging to the two 
groups acting in common agreement to prevent a con- 
flict. 

Herr von Jagow avoided the point by saying that Ger- 
many had engagements with Austria. I observed to him 
that the relations of Germany with Vienna were no closer 
than those of France with Russia, and that it was he him- 
self who actually was putting the two groups of allies in 
opposition. 

The Secretary of State then said to me that he was not 
refusing to act so as to keep off an Austro-Russian dispute, 
but that he could not intervene in the Austro-Servian 
dispute. "The one is the consequence of the other," I 
said, "and it is a question of preventing the appearance 
of a new factor of such a nature as to lead to intervention 
by Russia." 

As the Secretary of State persisted in saying that he was 
obliged to keep his engagements towards Austria, I asked 
him if he was bound to follow her everywhere with his 
eyes blindfolded, and if he had taken note of the reply of 
Servia to Austria, which the Servian Charge d' Affaires 
had delivered to him this morning. "I have not yet had 
time," he said. "I regret it. You would see that, except 
on some points of detail, Servia has yielded entirely. It 
appears then that, since Austria has obtained the satisfac- 
tion which your support has procured for her, you might 
to-day advise her to be content or to examine with Servia 
the terms of her reply." 

As Herr von Jagow gave me no clear reply, I asked him 
whether Germany wished for war. He protested energeti- 
cally, saying that he knew what was in my mind, but that 
it was wholly incorrect. "You must then," I replied, 
"act consistently. When you read the Servian reply, I 
entreat you in the name of humanity to weigh the terms in 
your conscience, and do not personally assume a part of 
the responsibility for the catastrophe which you are allowing 
to be prepared." Herr von Jagow protested anew, adding 
that he was ready to join England and France in a common 
effort, but that it was necessary to find a form for this 



THE PRETEXT 63 

intervention which he could accept, and that the Cabinets 
must come to an understanding on this point. 

Jules Cambon. 

M. Bienvenur-Martin, Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs, 
to M. Rene Viviani, President of the Council on board 
the "La France." 

Paris, July 28, 1914. 

In spite of the assurances given, both in Berhn and Paris 
by the German representatives, of the desire of their 
Government to assist in efforts for the maintenance of 
peace, no sincere action has been taken by them to hold 
back Austria; the British proposal, which consists in 
action by the four less-interested Powers to obtain a cessa- 
tion of military operations at Vienna, Belgrade, and St. 
Petersburgh, and in a meeting at London of the German, 
French, and Italian Ambassadors under the chairmanship 
of Sir E. Grey, with a view of seeking a solution of the 
Austro-Servian difficulty, meets with objections at Berlin 
of such a nature as must lead to failure. 

The Austrian Ambassador has proceeded to announce 
that his Government will to-morrow take energetic mea- 
sures to compel Servia to give to them the satisfaction and 
guarantees which they demand from that Power; Count 
Scezsen has given no explanation as to those measures; 
according to our Military Attache at Vienna, mobilisation 
dating from July 28 appears to be certain. 

Bienvenu-Martin. 

Sir M. de Bunsen, British Ambassador at Vienna, to 
Sir Edward Grey. 

{Received July 2p.) 
(Telegraphic.) Vienna, July 28, 1914. 

I am informed by the Russian Ambassador that the 
Russian Government's suggestion has been declined by the 
Austro-Hungarian Government. The suggestion was to 
the effect that the means of settling the Austro-Servian 
conflict should be discussed directly between Russian Min- 



m THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

ister for Foreign Affairs, and the Austrian Ambassador at 
St. Petersburgh, who should be authorised accordingly. 

The Russian Ambassador thinks that a conference in 
London of the less interested Powers, such as you have 
proposed, offers now the only prospect of preserving peace 
of Europe, and he is sure that the Russian Government will 
acquiesce willingly in your proposal. So long as opposing 
armies have not actually come in contact, all hope need not 
be abandoned. 

M: Dumaine, French Ambassador at Vienna, to 
M. Bienvenu-Martin, Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs. 

Vienna, July 28, 19 14. 

Count Berchtold has just declared to Sir M. de Bunsen 
that any intervention, aiming at the resumption of the 
discussion between Austria and Servia on the basis of the 
Servian reply, would be useless, and besides that it would 
be too late, as war had been officially declared at mid-day. 

The attitude of my Russian colleague has never varied 
up to the present; in his opinion it is not a question of 
localising the conflict, but rather of preventing it. The 
declaration of war will make very difficult the initiation 
of pourparlers by the four Powers, as well as the continua- 
tion of the direct discussions between M, Sazonof and 
Count Szapary. 

It is held here that the formula which seemed as if it 
might obtain the adherence of Germany — "Mediation be- 
tween Austria and Russia" — is unsuitable, inasmuch as it 
alleges a dispute between those two Empires which does 
not exist up to the present. 

Among the suspicions aroused by the sudden and violent 
resolution of Austria, the most disquieting is, that Germany 
should have pushed her on to aggressive action against 
Servia in order to be able herself to enter into war with 
Russia and France in circumstances which she supposes 
ought to be most favourable to herself and under conditions 
which have been thoroughly considered, 

Dumaine. 



THE PRETEXT 65 

M. Paleologue, French Ambassador at St. Petershiirgh, 
to M .Bienvenu-Martin, Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs. 

St. Petershurgh, July 28, 1914. 

The Austro-Hungarian Government has not yet replied 
to the proposal of the Russian Government suggesting the 
opening of direct conversations between St. Petershurgh 
and Vienna. 

M. Sazonof received the German and Austro-Hungarian 
Ambassadors this afternoon. The impression which he got 
from this double interview is a bad one. "Certainly," he 
said to me, "Austria is unwilling to converse." 

As the result of a conversation which I have just had 
with my two colleagues I have the same impression of 
pessimism. 

Paleologue. 

Telegrams communicated by Count Benckendorff, Russian 
Ambassador in London, July 29, 19 14. 

(i) Telegram from M. Sazonof to Russian Ambassador 
at Berlin, dated July 28, 19 14. 

In consequence of the declaration of war by Austria 
against Servia, the Imperial Government will announce to- 
morrow (29th) the mobilisation in the military circonscrip- 
tions of Odessa, Kieff, Moscow and Kazan. Please inform 
German Government, confirming the absence in Russia of 
any aggressive intention against Germany. 

The Russian Ambassador at Vienna has not been recalled 
from his post. 

(2) Telegram to Count Benckendorff.'^ 

The Austrian declaration of war clearly puts an end to 
the idea of direct communications between Austria and 
Russia. Action by London Cabinet in order to set on foot 
mediation with a view to suspension of military operations 
of Austria against Servia is now most urgent. 

* Russian Ambassador in London. 



66 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

Unless military operations are stopped, mediation would 
only allow matters to drag on and give Austria time to 
crush Servia. 



Sir E. Goschen, British Ambassador at Berlin, to 
Sir Edward Grey. 

{Received July 29.) 
(Telegraphic.) Berlin, July 29, 1914. 

I was sent for again to-day by the Imperial Chancellor, 
who told me that he regretted to state that the Austro- 
Hungarian Government, to whom he had at once communi- 
cated your opinion, had answered that events had marched 
too rapidly and that it was therefore too late to act upon 
your suggestion that the Servian reply might form the 
basis of discussion. His Excellency had, on receiving their 
reply, despatched a message to Vienna, in which he ex- 
plained that, although a certain desire had, in his opinion, 
been shown in the Servian reply to meet the demands of 
Austria, he understood entirely that, without some sure 
guarantees that Servia would carry out in their entirety 
the demands made upon her, the Austro-Hungarian 
Government could not rest satisfied in view of their past 
experience. He had then gone on to say that the hostilities 
which were about to be undertaken against Servia had pre- 
sumably the exclusive object of securing such guarantees, 
seeing that the Austrian Government already assured the 
Russian Government that they had no territorial designs. 

He advised the Austro-Hungarian Government, should 
this view be correct, to speak openly in this sense. The 
holding of such language would, he hoped, eliminate all 
possible misunderstandings. 

As yet, he told me, he had not received a reply from 
Vienna. 

From the fact that he had gone so far in the matter of 
giving advice at Vienna, his Excellency hoped that you 
would realise that he was sincerely doing all in his power 
to prevent danger of European complications. 



THE PRETEXT 67 

The fact of his communicating this information to you 
was a proof of the confidence which he felt in you and evi- 
dence of his anxiety that you should know he was doing his 
best to support your efforts in the cause of general peace, 
efforts which he sincerely appreciated. 

Sir M. de Bunsen, British Ambassador at Vienna, to 
Sir Edward Grey. 

{Received July 29.) 

(Telegraphic.) Vienna, July 29, 1914. 

There is at present no step which we could usefully take 
to stop war with Servia, to which Austro-Hungarian Gov- 
ernment are now fully committed by the Emperor's appeal 
to his people which has been published this morning, and 
by the declaration of war. French and Italian Ambassa- 
dors agree with me in this view. If the Austro-Hungarian 
Government would convert into a binding engagement to 
Europe the declaration which has been made at St. Peters- 
burgh to the effect that she desires neither to destroy the 
independence of Servia nor to acquire Servian territory, 
the Italian Ambassador thinks that Russia might be in- 
duced to remain quiet. This, however, the Italian Ambas- 
sador is convinced the Austrian Government would refuse 
to do. 

Sir R. Rodd, British Ambassador at Rome, to 
Sir Edward Grey. 

{Received July 29.) 

(Telegraphic.) Rome, July 29, 1914. 

In your telegram of the 27th instant to Berlin, German 
Ambassador was reported to have accepted in principle 
the idea of a conference. This is in contradiction with the 
telegram of the 27th instant from Berlin. 

Information received by the Italian Government from 
Berlin shows that German view is correctly represented 



68 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

in Sir E. Goschen's telegram of the 27th July, but what 
creates difficulty is rather the "conference," so the Minister 
for Foreign Affairs understands, than the principle. He is 
going to urge, in a telegram which he is sending to Berlin 
to-night, adherence to the idea of an exchange of views in 
London. He suggests that the German Secretary of State 
might propose a formula acceptable to his Government. 
Minister for Foreign Affairs is of opinion that this exchange 
of views would keep the door open if direct communication 
between Vienna and St. Petersburgh fails to have any re- 
sult. He thinks that this exchange of views might be con- 
comitant with such direct communication. 

The German Government are also being informed that 
the Italian Government would not be pardoned by public 
opinion here unless they had taken every possible step so as 
to avoid war. He is urging that the German Government 
must lend their co-operation in this. 

He added that there seemed to be a difficulty in making 
Germany believe that Russia was in earnest. As Germany, 
however, was really anxious for good relations with our- 
selves, if she believed that Great Britain would act with 
Russia and France he thought it would have a great effect. 

Even should it prove impossible to induce Germany to 
take part, he would still advocate that England and Italy, 
each as representing one group, should continue to exchange 
views. 

Sir Edward Grey to Sir R. Rodd, British Ambassador 

at Rome. 

(Telegraphic.) Foreign Office, July 29, 1914. 

With reference to your telegram of yesterday. 

It is impossible for me to initiate discussions with Am- 
bassadors here, as I understand from Austrian Minister 
for Foreign Affairs that Austria will not accept any dis- 
cussion on basis of Servian note, and the inference of all I 
have heard from Vienna and Berlin is that Austria will not 
accept any form of mediation by the Powers as between 
Austria and Servia. Italian Minister for Foreign Affairs 



THE PRETEXT 69 

must therefore speak at Berlin and Vienna. I shall be glad 
if a favourable reception is given to any suggestions he 
can make there. 



Sir Edward Grey to Sir E. Goschen, British Ambassador at 

Berlin. 

(Telegraphic.) Foreign Office, July 29, 1914. 

The German Ambassador has been instructed by the 
German Chancellor to inform me that he is endeavouring 
to mediate between Vienna and St. Petersburgh, and he 
hopes with good success. Austria and Russia seem to 
be in constant touch, and he is endeavouring to make 
Vienna explain in a satisfactory form at St. Petersburgh 
the scope and extension of Austrian proceedings in Servia. 
I told the German Ambassador that an agreement arrived 
at direct between Austria and Russia would be the best 
possible solution. I would press no proposal as long as 
there was a prospect of that, but my information this morn- 
ing was that the Austrian Government have declined the 
suggestion of the Russian Government that the Austrian 
Ambassador at St. Petersburgh should be authorised to 
discuss directly with the Russian Minister for Foreign 
Affairs the means of settling the Austro-Servian conflict. 
The press correspondents at St. Petersburgh had been told 
that Russian Government would mobilise. The German 
Government had said that they were favourable in principle 
to mediation between Russia and Austria if necessary. 
They seemed to think the particular method of conference, 
consultation or discussion, or even conversations a quatre 
in London too formal a method. I urged that the German 
Government should suggest any method by which the 
influence of the four Powers could be used together to 
prevent war between Austria and Russia. France agreed, 
Italy agreed. The whole idea of mediation or mediating 
influence was ready to be put into operation by any method 
that Germany could suggest if mine was not acceptable. 
In fact mediation was ready to come into operation by any 



70 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

method that Germany thought possible if only Germany 
would "press the button" in the interests of peace. 



Sir E. Goschen, British Ambassador at Berlin, to 
Sir Edward Grey. 

{Received July 29.) 

(Telegraphic.) Berlin, July 29, 1914. 

I was asked to call upon the Chancellor to-night. His 
Excellency had just returned from Potsdam. 

He said that should Austria be attacked by Russia a 
European conflagration might, he feared, become inevitable, 
owing to Germany's obligations as Austria's ally, in spite 
of his continued efforts to maintain peace. He then pro- 
ceeded to make the following strong bid for British neu- 
trality. He said that it was clear, so far as he was able to 
judge the main principle which governed British policy 
that Great Britain would never stand by and allow France 
to be crushed in any conflict there might be. That, how- 
ever, was not the object at which Germany aimed. Pro- 
vided that neutrality of Great Britain were certain, every 
assurance would be given to the British Government that 
the Imperial Government aimed at no territorial acquisi- 
tions at the expense of France should they prove victorious 
in any war that might ensue. 

I questioned his Excellency about the French colonies, 
and he said that he was unable to give a similar undertak- 
ing in that respect. As regards Holland, however, his Ex- 
cellency said that so long as Germany's adversaries re- 
spected the integrity and neutrality of the Netherlands Ger- 
many was ready to give His Majesty's Government an as- 
surance that she would do likewise. It depended upon the 
action of France what operations Germany might be forced 
to enter upon in Belgium, but when the war was over, Bel- 
gian integrity would be respected if she had not sided 
against Germany. 

His Excellency ended by saying that ever since he had 
been Chancellor the object of his policy had been, as you 



THE PRETEXT 71 

were aware, to bring about an understanding with England ; 
he trusted that these assurances might form the basis of 
that understanding which he so much desired. He had in 
mind a general neutrality agreement between England and 
Germany, though it was of course at the present moment 
too early to discuss details, and an assurance of British 
neutrality in the conflict which present crisis might possibly 
produce, would enable him to look forward to realisation 
of his desire. 

In reply to his Excellency's inquiry how I thought 
his request would appeal to you, I said that I did not 
think it probable that at this stage of events you would 
care to bind yourself to any course of action and that 
I was of opinion that you would desire to retain full 
liberty. 

Our conversation upon this subject having come to an 
end, I communicated the contents of your telegram of 
to-day to his Excellency, who expressed his best thanks 
to you. 

Sir Edward Grey to Sir F. Bertie, British Ambassador at 

Paris. 

Foreign Office, July 29, 191 4. 
Sir, 

After telling M. Cambon to-day how grave the situation 
seemed to be, I told him that I meant to tell the German 
Ambassador to-day that he must not be misled by the 
friendly tone of our conversations into any sense of false 
security that we should stand aside if all the efforts to 
preserve the peace, which we were now making in common, 
with Germany, failed. But I went on to say to M. Cambon 
that I thought it necessary to tell him also that public 
opinion here approached the present difficulty from a quite 
different point of view from that taken during the difficulty 
as to Morocco a few years ago. In the case of Morocco 
the dispute was one in which France was primarily inter- 
ested, and in which it appeared that Germany, in an 
attempt to crush France, was fastening a quarrel on France 



72 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

on a question that was the subject of a special agreement 
between France and us. In the present case the dispute 
between Austria and Servia was not one in which we felt 
called to take a hand. Even if the question became one 
between Austria and Russia we should not feel called upon 
to take a hand in it. It would then be a question of the 
supremacy of Teuton or Slav — a struggle for supremacy in 
the Balkans; and our idea had always been to avoid 
being drawn into a war over a Balkan question. If Ger- 
many became involved and France became involved, we 
had not made up our minds what we should do; it was a 
case that we should have to consider. France would then 
have been drawn into a quarrel which was not hers, but 
in which, owing to her alliance, her honour and interest 
obliged her to engage. We were free from engagements, 
and we should have to decide what British interests re- 
quired us to do. I thought it necessary to say that, be- 
cause, as he knew, we were taking all precautions with 
regard to our fleet; and I was about to warn Prince Lich- 
nowsky not to count on our standing aside, but it would 
not be fair that I should let M. Cambon be misled into 
supposing that this meant that we had decided what to do 
in a contingency that I still hoped might not arise. 

M. Cambon said that I had explained the situation very 
clearly. He understood it to be that in a Balkan quarrel, 
and in a struggle for supremacy between Teuton and Slav, 
we should not feel called to intervene; should other issues 
be raised, and Germany and France become involved, so 
that the question became one of the hegemony of Europe, 
we should then decide what it was necessary for us to do. 
He seemed quite prepared for this announcement, and made 
no criticism upon it. 

He said French opinion was calm, but decided. He anti- 
cipated a demand from Germany that France would be 
neutral while Germany attacked Russia. This assurance 
France, of course, could not give; she was bound to help 
Russia if Russia was attacked. 

I am, &€., 
E. Grey. 



THE PRETEXT 73 

Sir Edward Grey to Sir M. de Bunsen, British Ambassador 

at Vienna. 

Foreign Office, July 29, 1914. 
Sir, 

The Austrian Ambassador told me to-day he had ready a 
long memorandum, which he proposed to leave, and which 
he said gave an account of the conduct of Servia towards 
Austria, and an explanation of how necessary the Austrian 
action was. 

I said that I did not wish to discuss the merits of the 
question between Austria and Servia. The news to-day 
seemed to me very bad for the peace of Europe. The 
Powers were not allowed to help in getting satisfaction for 
Austria, which they might get if they were given an oppor- 
tunity, and European peace was at stake. 

Count Mensdorff ^ said that the war with Servia must 
proceed. Austria could not continue to be exposed to the 
necessity of mobilising again and again, as she had been 
obliged to do in recent years. She had no idea of territo- 
rial aggrandisement, and all she wished was to make sure 
that her interests were safeguarded. 

I said that it would be quite possible, without nominally 
interfering with the independence of Servia or taking away 
any of her territory, to turn her into a sort of vassal State. 

Count Mensdorff deprecated this. 

In reply to some further remarks of mine, as to the effect 
that the Austrian action might have upon the Russian 
position in the Balkans, he said that, before the Balkan 
war, Servia had always been regarded as being in the Aus- 
trian sphere of influence. I am, &c., 

E. Grey, 

Sir Edward Grey to Sir R. Rodd, British Ambassador at 

Rome. 

Foreign Office, July 29, 1914. 
Sir, 
The Italian Ambassador made to me to-day a communica- 
^ Austro-Hungarian Ambassador in London. 



74 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

tion from the Marquis di San Giuliano ^ suggesting that the 
German objections to the mediation of the four Powers, a 
mediation that was strongly favoured by Italy, might be 
removed by some change in the form of procedure. 

I said that I had already anticipated this by asking the 
German Government to suggest any form of procedure 
under which the idea of mediation between Austria and 
Russia, already accepted by the German Government in 
principle, could be applied. 

I am, &c., 
E. Grey. 



M. Sazonof, Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs, to Count 
Benckendorff, Russian Ambassador in London. 



Saint-Petersbourg, 
le i6 (29) juillet, 1914. 
(Telegraphique.) 

Lors de mon entretien 
avec I'Ambassadeur d'Alle- 



St. Pefersburgh, 
July 16 (29), 1914. 
(Telegraphic.) 

At the time of my inter- 
view with the German Am- 



magne, dont traite mon bassador, dealt with in my 
telegramme precedent, je preceding telegram, I had 



n'avais pas encore regu le 
telegramme du 15 (28) 
juillet de M. Schebeko.2 

Le contenu de ce tele- 
gramme constitue un refus 
du Cabinet de Vienne de 
proceder a un echange 
d'idees direct avec le Gou- 
vernement Imperial. 

Des lors, il ne nous reste 
plus qu'a nous en remettre 
entierement au Gouverne- 
ment britannique pour 
I'initiative des demarches 
qu'il jugera utile de provo- 
quer. 

^Italian Minister for Foreign Affairs 
' Russian Ambassador at Vienna. 



not yet received M. Schebe- 
ko's^ telegram of the 15th 
(28th) July. 

The contents of this tele- 
gram constitute a refusal 
of the Vienna Cabinet to 
agree to a direct exchange 
of views with the Imperial 
Government. 

From now on, nothing 
remains for us to do but 
to rely entirely on the 
British Government to take 
the initiative in any steps 
which they may consider 
advisable. 



THE PRETEXT 75 

M. Paleologue, French Ambassador at St. Petershurgh, to 
M. de Bienvenu-Martin, Acting Minister for Foreign 
Affairs. 

St. Petershurgh, July 29, 1914. 

I am now in a position to assure your Excellency that 
the Russian Government will acquiesce in any measures 
which France and Great Britain may propose in order to 
maintain peace. My British colleague is telegraphing to 
London to the same effect. Paleologue. 

M. Klohukowski, French Minister at Brussels, to 
M. Bienvenu-Martin, Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs. 

Brussels, July 29, 1914. 

I report the following impressions of my interview with 
M. Davignon and with several persons in a position to have 
exact information. The attitude of Germany is enigmati- 
cal and justifies every apprehension; it seems improbable 
that the Austro-Hungarian Government would have taken 
an initiative which would lead, according to a pre-conceived 
plan, to a declaration of war, without previous arrangement 
with the Emperor William. 

The German Government stand "with grounded arms" 
ready to take peaceful or warlike action as circumstances 
may require, but there is so much anxiety everywhere that 
a sudden intervention against us would not surprise any- 
body here. My Russian and British colleagues share this 
feeling. 

The Belgian Government are taking steps which harmon- 
ise with the statement made to me yesterday by M. Davig- 
non that everything will be put in readiness for the defence 
of the neutrality of the country. 

Klobukowski. 

Sir M. de Bunsen, British Ambassador at Vienna, to 
Sir Edward Grey. 
(Received Jidy 30.) 
(Telegraphic.) Vienna, July 30, 1914. 

Russian Ambassador hopes that Russian mobilisation 



76 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

will be regarded by Austria as what it is, viz., a clear inti- 
mation that Russia must be consulted regarding the fate 
of Servia, but he does not know how the Austrian Govern- 
ment are taking it. He says that Russia must have an 
assurance that Servia will not be crushed, but she would 
understand that Austria-Hungary is compelled to exact 
from Servia measures which will secure her Slav provinces 
from the continuance of hostile propaganda from Servian 
territory. 

The French Ambassador hears from Berlin that the 
German Ambassador at Vienna is instructed to speak seri- 
ously to the Austro-Hungarian Government against act- 
ing in a manner calculated to provoke a European war. 

Unfortunately the German Ambassador is himself so 
identified with extreme anti-Russian and anti-Servian feel- 
ing prevalent in Vienna that he is unlikely to plead the 
cause of peace with entire sincerity. 

Although I am not able to verify it, I have private infor- 
mation that the German Ambassador knew the text of the 
Austrian ultimatum to Servia before it was despatched and 
telegraphed it to the German Emperor. I know from the 
German Ambassador himself that he endorses every line 
of it. 

Sir G. Buchanan, British Ambassador at St. Peiershurgh, 

to Sir Edward Grey. 

{Received July 30.) 
(Telegraphic.) St. Petershurgh, July 30, 1914. 

French Ambassador and I visited Minister for Foreign 
Affairs this morning. His Excellency said that German 
Ambassador had told him yesterday afternoon that German 
Government were willing to guarantee that Servian integ- 
rity would be respected by Austria. To this he had 
replied that this might be so, but nevertheless Servia would 
become an Austrian vassal, just as, in similar circumstances, 
Bokhara had become a Russian vassal. There would 
be a revolution in Russia if she were to tolerate such a 
state of affairs, 



THE PRETEXT 77 

M. Sazonof ^ told us that absolute proof was In possession 
of Russian Government that Germany was making military 
and naval preparations against Russia — more particularly 
in the direction of the Gulf of Finland. 

German Ambassador had a second interview with Minis- 
ter for Foreign Affairs at 2 a. m., when former completely 
broke down on seeing that war was inevitable. He ap- 
pealed to M. Sazonof to make some suggestion which he 
could telegraph to German Government as a last hope. 
M. Sazonof accordingly drew up and handed to German 
Ambassador a formula in French, of which following is 
translation — 

"If Austria, recognising that her conflict with Servia 
has assumed character of question of European interest, 
declared herself ready to eliminate from her ultimatum 
points which violate principle of sovereignty of Servia, 
Russia engages to stop all military preparations." 

Preparations for general mobilisation will be proceeded 
with if this proposal is rejected by Austria, and inevitable 
result will be a European war. Excitement here has 
reached such a pitch that, if Austria refuses to make a 
concession, Russia cannot hold back, and now that she 
knows that Germany is arming, she can hardly postpone, 
for strategical reasons, converting partial into general 
mobilisation. 



M. Paleologne, French Ambassador at St. Pefersburgh, to 
M. Rene Viviani, President of the Council, Minister 
for Foreign Affairs. 

St. Pefersburgh, July 30, 1914. 

M. Sazonof, to whom I communicated your desire that 
every military measure, that could offer Germany the pre- 
text for general mobilisation should be avoided, answered 
that in the course of last night the General Staff had sus- 
pended all measures of military precaution so that there 
should be no misunderstanding. Yesterday the Chief of 

* Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs. 



78 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

the Russian General Staff sent for the Military Attache 
of the German Embassy and gave him his word of honour 
that the mobilisation ordered this morning was exclu- 
sively directed against Austria. 

Nevertheless, in an interview which he had this afternoon 
with Count Pourtales, M. Sazonof was forced to the con- 
clusion that Germany does not wish to pronounce at Vi- 
enna the decisive word which would safeguard peace. The 
Emperor Nicholas has received the same impression from 
an exchange of telegrams which he has just had person- 
ally with the Emperor William. 

Moreover, the Russian General Staff and Admiralty have 
received disquieting information concerning the prepara- 
tions of the German army and navy. 

In giving me this information M. Sazonof added that 
the Russian Government are continuing none the less their 
efforts towards conciliation. He repeated to me : "I shall 
continue to negotiate imtil the last moment." 

Paleologue. 



M. Paleologue, French Ambassador at St. Petersburgh, to 

M. Rene Viviani, President of the Council, Minister 

for Foreign Affairs. 

St. Petersburgh, July 30, 1914. 

The German Ambassador came to-night and again urged 
on M. Sazonof, but in less categorical terms, that Russia 
should cease her military preparations, and affirmed that 
Austria would not infringe the territorial integrity of 
Servia — 

"It is not only the territorial integrity of Servia which 
we must safeguard," answered M. Sazonof, "but also her 
independence and her sovereignty. We cannot allow Ser- 
via to become a vassal of Austria." 

M. Sazonof added : "The situation is too serious for me 
not to tell you all that is in my mind. By intervening at 
St. Petersburgh while she refuses to intervene at Vienna, 
Germany is only seeking to gain time so as to allow Austria 



THE PRETEXT 79 

to crush the little Servian kingdom before Russia can come 
to its aid. But the Emperor Nicholas is so anxious to 
prevent war that I am going to make a new proposal to you 
in his name : 

"If Austria, recognising that her dispute with Servia 
has assumed the character of a question of European 
interest, declares herself ready to eliminate from her 
ultimatum the clauses which are damaging to the sove- 
reignty of Servia, Russia undertakes to stop all military 
preparations." 

Count Pourtales promised to support this proposal with 
his Government. 

In the mind of M. Sazonof, the acceptance of this pro- 
posal by Austria would have, as a logical corollary, the 
opening of a discussion by the Powers in London. 

The Russian Government again show by their attitude 
that they are neglecting nothing in order to stop the con- 
flict. 

Paleologue. 

Sir Edward Grey to Sir E. Goschen, British Ambassador at 

Berlin. 

(Telegraphic.) Foreign Office, July 30, 1914. 

Your telegram of 29th July. 

His Majesty's Government cannot for a moment enter- 
tain the Chancellor's proposal that they should bind them- 
selves to neutrality on such terms. 

What he asks us in effect is to engage to stand by while 
French colonies are taken and France is beaten so long as 
Germany does not take French territory as distinct from 
the colonies. 

From the material point of view such a proposal is 
unacceptable, for France, without further territory in 
Europe being taken from her, could be so crushed as to 
lose her position as a Great Power, and become subordinate 
to German policy. 

Altogether apart from that, it would be a disgrace for 
us to make this bargain with Germany at the expense of 



80 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

France, a disgrace from which the good name of this coun- 
try would never recover. 

The Chancellor also in effect asks us to bargain away- 
whatever obligation or interest we have as regards the 
neutrality of Belgium. We could not entertain that bar- 
gain either. 

Having said so much it is unnecessary to examine 
whether the prospect of a future general neutrality agree- 
ment between England and Germany offered positive ad- 
vantages sufficient to compensate us for tying our hands 
now. We must preserve our full freedom to act as circum- 
stances may seem to us to require in any such unfavour- 
able and regrettable development of the present crisis as 
the Chancellor contemplates. 

You should speak to the Chancellor in the above sense, 
and add most earnestly that the one way of maintaining 
the good relations between England and Germany is that 
they should continue to work together to preserve the 
peace of Europe; if we succeed in this object, the mutual 
relations of Germany and England will, I believe, be ipso 
facto improved and strengthened. For that object His 
Majesty's Government will work in that way with all sin- 
cerity and good-will. 

And I will say this: If the peace of Europe can be pre- 
served, and the present crisis safely passed, my own endea- 
vour will be to promote some arrangement to which Ger- 
many could be a party, by which she could be assured that 
no aggressive or hostile policy would be pursued against 
her or her allies by France, Russia, and ourselves, jointly 
or separately. I have desired this and worked for it, as far 
as I could, through the last Balkan crisis, and, Germany 
having a corresponding object, our relations sensibly 
improved. The idea has hithereto been too Utopian to 
form the subject of definite proposals, but if this present 
crisis, so much more acute than any that Europe has gone 
through for generations, be safely passed, I am hopeful 
that the relief and reaction which will follow may make 
possible some more definite rapprochement between the 
Powers than has been possible hitherto. 



THE PRETEXT 81 

Sir Edward Grey to Sir F. Bertie, British Ambassador at 

Paris. 

Foreign Office, July 30, 1914. 
Sir, 

M. Cambon reminded me to-day of the letter I had 
written to him two years ago, in which we agreed that, if 
the peace of Europe was seriously threatened, we would 
discuss what we were prepared to do. I enclose for con- 
venience of reference copies of the letter in question and of 
M, Cambon's reply. He said that the peace of Europe 
was never more seriously threatened than it was now. He 
did not wish to ask me to say directly that we would inter- 
vene, but he would like me to say what we should do if 
certain circumstances arose. The particular hypothesis 
he had in mind was an aggression by Germany on France. 
He gave me a paper, of which a copy is also enclosed, show- 
ing that the German military preparations were more 
advanced and more on the offensive upon the frontier than 
anything France had yet done. He anticipated that the 
aggression would take the form of either a demand that 
France should cease her preparations, or a demand that she 
should engage to remain neutral if there was war between 
Germany and Russia. Neither of these things could 
France admit. 

I said that the Cabinet was to meet to-morrow morning, 
and I would see him again to-morrow afternoon. 

I am, &c., 
E. Grey. 
Enclosure. 

French Minister for Foreign Affairs to M. Cambon, French 
Ambassador in London. 

(Translation.) 
L'armee allemande a ses The German Army had 
avant-postes sur nos bornes- its advance-posts on our 
frontieres, hier; par deux frontiers yesterday; Ger- 
fois des patrouilles alle- man patrols twice pene- 
mandes ont penetre sur trated on to our territory, 
notre territoire. Nos avant- Our advance-posts are 



82 



THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 



postes sont en retraite 
a lo kilom. en arriere de 
la frontiere. Les popu- 
lations ainsi abandonnees 
a I'attaque de I'armee ad- 
verse protestent; mais le 
Gouvernement tient a mon- 
trer a I'opinion publique et 
au Gouvernement britan- 
nique que I'agresseur ne sera 
en aucun cas la France. 
Tout le i6e Corps de Metz 
renforce par une partie du 8^ 
venu de Treves et de Cologne 
occupe la frontiere de Metz 
au Luxembourg. Le 15^ 
Corps d'Armee de Stras- 
bourg a serre sur la fron- 
tiere. Sous menace d'etre 
fusilles les Alsaciens-Lor- 
rains des pays annexes ne 
peuvent pas passer la fron- 
tiere; des reservists par 
dizaines de milliers sont 
rappeles en Allemagne ; 
c'est le dernier stade avant 
la mobilisation: or, nous 
n'avons rappele aucun reser- 
viste. 

Comme vous le voyez, 
I'Allemagne I'a fait. J'- 
ajoute que toutes nos in- 
formations concordent pour 
montrer que les preparatifs 
allemands ont commence 
samedi/ le jour meme de 
la remise de la note autrichi- 
enne, 

* Sic : in original. The actual date of the presentation of the 
Austrian ultimatum was, in fact, Thursday, July 23. The Servian 



withdrawn to a distance of 
10 kilom. from the frontier. 
The local population is pro- 
testing against being thus 
abandoned to the attack of 
the enemy's army, but the 
Government wishes to make 
it clear to public opinion and 
to the British Government 
that in no case will France 
be the aggressor. The whole 
1 6th corps from Metz, 
reinforced by a part of the 
8th from Treves and Co- 
logne, is occupying the fron- 
tier at Metz on the Luxem- 
burg side. The 15th army 
corps from Strassburg has 
closed up on the frontier. 
The inhabitants of Alsace- 
Lorraine are prevented by 
the threat of being shot 
from crossing the frontier. 
Reservists have been called 
back to Germany by tens 
of thousands. This is the 
last stage before mobilisa- 
tion, whereas we have not 
called back a single reservist. 
As you see, Germany has 
done so. I would add that 
all my information goes to 
show that the German pre- 
parations began on Satur- 
day,^ the very day on which 
the Austrian note was 
handed In. 



THE PRETEXT 83 

Ces elements, ajoutes a These facts, added to 

ceux contenus dans mon those contained in my tele- 

telegramme d'hier, vous per- gram of yesterday, will 

mettent de faire la preuve enable you to prove to the 

au Gouvernement britan- British Government the 

nique de la volonte pacifique pacific intentions of the one 

de I'un et des intentions party and the aggressive 

agressives de I'autre. intentions of the other. 



Sir R. Rodd, British Ambassador at Rome, to 
Sir Edward Grey. 

{Received July 31.) 

(Telegraphic) Rome, July 30, 1914. 

I learnt from the Minister for Foreign Affairs, who sent 
for me this evening, that the Austrian Government had 
declined to continue the direct exchange of views with the 
Russian Government. But he had reason to believe that 
Germany was now disposed to give more conciliatory ad- 
vice to Austria, as she seemed convinced that we should 
act with France and Russia, and was most anxious to avoid 
issue with us. 

He said he was telegraphing to the Italian Ambassador 
at Berlin to ask the German Government to suggest that 
the idea of an exchange of views between the four Powers 
should be resumed in any form which Austria would con- 
sider acceptable. It seemed to him that Germany might 
invite Austria to state exactly the terms which she would 
demand from Servia, and give a guarantee that she would 
neither deprive her of independence nor annex territory. 
It would be useless to ask for anything less than was 
contained in the Austrian ultimatum, and Germany would 
support no proposal that might imply non-success for 
Austria. We might, on the other hand, ascertain from 
Russia what she would accept, and, once we knew the 
standpoints of these two countries, discussions could be 

reply was dated Saturday, July 25, and it is clearly to the latter 
document that reference is intended. 



84^ THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

commenced at once. There was still time so long as Aus- 
tria had received no check. He in any case was in favour 
of continuing an exchange of views with His Majesty's 
Government if the idea of discussions between the four 
Powers was impossible. 



M. Jules Camhon, French Ambassador at Berlin, to M. 
Rene Viviani, President of the Council, Minister for 
Foreign Affairs. 

Berlin, July 30, 1914. 

The British Ambassador has not been informed of Ger- 
many's reply to Sir E. Grey's request. He told me that 
Berlin had consulted Vienna and was still waiting to hear 
from her ally. 

My Russian colleague has just told me that Herr von 
Jagow (to whom Count Pourtales had communicated the 
conciliatory formula suggested by M. Sazanof for an Aus- 
tro-Russian understanding) had just told him that he found 
this proposal unacceptable to Austria, thus showing the 
negative action of German diplomacy at Vienna. 

Jules Cambon. 



Sir Edward Grey to Sir E. Goschen, British Ambassador at 

Berlin. 

(Telegraphic.) Foreign Office, July 31, 1914. 

I hope that the conversations which are now proceeding 
between Austria and Russia may lead to a satisfactory 
result. The stumbling-block hitherto has been Austrian 
mistrust of Servian assurances, and Russian mistrust of 
Austrian intentions with regard to the independence and 
integrity of Servia. It has occurred to me that, in the 
event of this mistrust preventing a solution being found 
by Vienna and St. Petersburgh, Germany might sound 
Vienna, and I would undertake to sound St. Petersburgh, 
whether it would be possible for the four disinterested 
Powers to offer to Austria that they would undertake to 



THE PRETEXT 85 

see that she obtained full satisfaction of her demands on 
Servia, provided that they did not impair Servian sover- 
eignty and the integrity of Servian territory. As your Ex- 
cellency is aware, Austria has already declared her willing- 
ness to respect them. Russia might be informed by the 
four Powers that they would undertake to prevent Austrian 
demands going the length of impairing Servian sovereignty 
and integrity. All Powers would of course suspend further 
military operations or preparations. 

You may sound the Secretary of State about this pro- 
posal. 

I said to German Ambassador this morning that if Ger- 
many could get any reasonable proposal put forward which 
made it clear that Germany and Austria were striving to 
preserve European peace, and that Russia and France 
would be unreasonable if they rejected it, I would support 
it at St. Petersburgh and Paris, and go the length of saying 
that if Russia and France would not accept it His Majesty's 
Government would have nothing more to do with the conse- 
quences; but, otherwise, I told German Ambassador that if 
France became involved we should be drawn in. 

You can add this when sounding Chancellor or Secre- 
tary of State as to proposal above. 

Sir G. Buchanan, British Ambassador at St. Petersburgh, 
to Sir Edward Grey. 

{Received July 31.) 

(Telegraphic.) St. Petersburgh, July 31, 1914. 

It has been decided to issue orders for general mobilisa- 
tion. This decision was taken in consequence of report 
received from Russian Ambassador in Vienna to the effect 
that Austria is determined not to yield to intervention of 
Powers, and that she is moving troops against Russia as 
well as against Servia. 

Russia has also reason to believe that Germany is mak- 
ing active military preparations, and she cannot afford to 
let her get a start. 



86 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

Sir Edward Grey to Sir F. Bertie, British Ambassador at 
Paris, and Sir E. Goschen, British Ambassador at Berlin. 

(Telegraphic.) Foreign Office, July 31, 1914. 

I Still trust that situation is not irretrievable, but in view 
of prospect of mobilisation in Germany it becomes essen- 
tial to His Majesty's Government, in view of existing 
treaties, to ask whether French (German) Government are 
prepared to engage to respect neutrality of Belgium so 
long as no other Power violates it. 

A similar request is being addressed to German (French) 
Government. It is important to have an early answer, 

Svr F. Bertie, British Ambassador at Paris, to 
Sir Edward Grey. 

{Received July 31.) 
(Telegraphic.) Paris, July 31, 1914. 

At 7 o'clock this evening I was sent for by Minister for 
Foreign Affairs. When I arrived the German Ambassador 
was leaving his Excellency. 

German Ambassador had informed his Excellency that, 
in view of the fact that orders had been given for the total 
mobilisation of Russian army and fleet, German Govern- 
ment have in an ultimatum which they have addressed to 
the Russian Government required that Russian forces 
should be demobilised. 

The German Government will consider it necessary to 
order the total mobilisation of the German army on the 
Russian and French frontiers if within twelve hours the 
Russian Government do not give an undertaking to comply 
with German demand. 

The Minister for Foreign Affairs asks me to communi- 
cate this to you, and inquires what, in these circumstances, 
will be the attitude of England. 

German Ambassador could not say when the twelve 
hours terminates. He is going to call at the Ministry for 
Foreign Affairs to-morrow (Saturday) at i p.m. in order 



THE PRETEXT 87 

to receive the French Government's answer as to the atti- 
tude they will adopt in the circumstances. 

He intimated the possibility of his requiring his pass- 
ports. 

I am informed by the Russian Ambassador that he is 
not aware of any general mobilisation of the Russian forces 
having taken place. 

Sir G. Buchanan, British Ambassador at St. Petershurgh, 
to Sir Edward Grey. 

{Received August i.) 

(Telegraphic.) St. Petershurgh, July 31, 1914. 

Minister for Foreign Affairs sent for me and French 
Ambassador and asked us to telegraph to our respective 
Governments subjoined formula as best calculated to amal- 
gamate proposal made by you in your telegram of 30th 
July with formula recorded in my telegram of 30th July. 
He trusted it would meet with your approval: — 

"Si TAutriche consentira a arreter marche des ses 
troupes sur le territoire serbe, si, reconnaissant que le 
conflit austro-serbe a assume le caractere d'une question 
d'interet europeen, elle admet que les Grandes Puissances 
examinent la satisfaction que la Serbie pourrait accorder 
au Gouvernement d'Autriche-Hongrie sans laisser porter 
atteinte a ses droits d'fitat souverain et a son independance, 
la Russie s'engage a conserver son attitude expectante." ^ 

His Excellency then alluded to the telegram sent to 
German Emperor by Emperor of Russia in reply to the 
former's telegram. He said that Emperor Nicholas had 
begun by thanking Emperor William for his telegram and 
for the hopes of peaceful solution which it held out. His 

* Translation. — "If Austria will agree to check the advance 
of her troops on Servian territory; if, recognising that the dispute 
between Austria and Servia has assumed a character of European 
interest, she will allow the Great Powers to look into the matter 
and determine whether Servia could satisfy the Austro-Hungarian 
Government without impairing her rights as a sovereign State or 
her independence, Russia will undertake to maintain her waiting 
attitude." 



88 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

Majesty had then proceeded to assure Emperor WilHam 
that no intention whatever of an aggressive character was 
concealed behind Russian mihtary preparations. So long 
as conversation with Austria continued, His Imperiad Maj- 
esty undertook that not a single man should be moved 
across the frontier; it was, however, of course impossible, 
for reasons explained, to stop a mobilisation which was 
already in progress. 

M. Sazonof ^ said that undoubtedly there would be bet- 
ter prospect of a peaceful solution if the suggested conver- 
sation were to take place in London, where the atmosphere 
was far more favourable, and he therefore hoped that you 
would see your way to agreeing to this. 

His Excellency ended by expressing his deep gratitude 
to His Majesty's Government, who had done so much to 
save the situation. It would be largely due to them if war 
were prevented. The Emperor, the Russian Government, 
and the Russian people would never forget the firm atti- 
tude adopted by Great Britain. 



Sir E. Goschen, British Ambassador at Berlin, to 
Sir Edward Grey. 

{Received August i.) 

(Telegraphic.) Berlin, July 31, 1914. 

Your telegram of 31st July. 

I spent an hour with Secretary of State urging him most 
earnestly to accept your proposal and make another effort 
to prevent terrible catastrophe of a European war. 

He expressed himself very sympathetically towards 
your proposal, and appreciated your continued efforts to 
maintain peace, but said it was impossible for the Imperial 
Government to consider any proposal until they had 
received an answer from Russia to their communication of 
to-day; this communication, which he admitted had the 
form of an ultimatum, being that, unless Russia could 
inform the Imperial Government within twelve hours that 

* Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs. 



THE PRETEXT ' 89 

she would immediately countermand her mobilisation 
against Germany and Austria, Germany would be obliged 
on her side to mobilise at once. 

I asked his Excellency why they had made their demand 
even, more difficult for Russia to accept by asking them to 
demobilise in south as well. He replied that it was in order 
to prevent Russia from saying all her mobilisation was 
only directed against Austria. 

His Excellency said that if the answer from Russia was 
satisfactory he thought personally that your proposal mer- 
ited favourable consideration, and in any case he would 
lay it before the Emperor and Chancellor, but he repeated 
that it was no use discussing it until the Russian Govern- 
ment had sent in their answer to the German demand. 

He again assured me that both the Emperor William, at 
the request of the Emperor of Russia, and the German 
Foreign Office had even up till last night been urging Aus- 
tria to show willingness to continue discussions — and tele- 
graphic and telephonic communications from Vienna had 
been of a promising nature — ^but Russia's mobilisation had 
spoilt everything. 

Sir E. Goschen, British Ambassador at Berlin, to 
Sir Edward Grey. 

{Received August i.) 

(Telegraphic.) Berlin, July 31, 1914. 

Neutrality of Belgium, referred to in your telegram of 
31st July to Sir F. Bertie. 

I have seen Secretary of State, who informs me that he 
must consult the Emperor and the Chancellor before he 
could possibly answer. I gathered from what he said that 
he thought any reply they might give could not but disclose 
a certain amount of their plan of campaign in the event of 
war ensuing, and he was therefore very doubtful whether 
they would return any answer at all. His Excellency, 
nevertheless, took note of your request. 

It appears from what he said that German Government 



90 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

consider that certain hostile acts have already been com- 
mitted by Belgium. As an instance of this, he alleged 
th^t a^ consignment of corn for Germany had been placed 
under an embargo already. 

I hope to see his Excellency to-morrow again to discuss 
the matter further, but the prospect of obtaining a definite 
answer seems to me remote. 

In speaking to me to-day the Chancellor made it clear 
that Germany would in any case desire to know the reply 
returned to you by the French Government. 

Sir F. Bertie, British Ambassador at Paris, to 
Sir Edzvard Grey. 

{Received August i.) 
(Telegraphic.) Paris, July 31, 1914. 

My immediately preceding telegram. 

PoHtical Director has brought me the reply of the Min- 
ister for Foreign Affairs to your inquiry respecting the 
neutrality of Belgium. It is as follows — 

French Government are resolved to respect the neutrality 
of Belgium, and it would only be in the event of some other 
Power violating that neutrality that France might find 
herself under the necessity, in order to ensure defence of 
her own security, to act otherwise. This assurance has 
been given several times. President of the Republic spoke 
of it to the King of the Belgians, and the French Minister 
at Brussels has spontaneously renewed the assurance to 
the Belgian Minister for Foreign Affairs to-day. 

M. Klobukowski, French Minister at Brussels, to M. Rene 
Viviuni, President of the Council, Minister for For- 
eign Affairs. 

Brussels, July 2,"^, 1914- 

L'Agence Havas having announced that the state "of 
danger of war" had been declared in Germany, I told M. 
Davignon that I could assure him that the Government 
of the Republic would respect the neutrality of Belgium. 



THE PRETEXT 91 

The Minister for Foreign Affairs replied that the Gov- 
ernment of the King had always thought that this would 
be so, and thanked me. The Russian Minister and the 
British Minister, whom I saw subsequently, appeared much 
pleased that in the circumstances I gave this assurance, 
which further, as the British Minister told me, was in 
accordance with the declaration of Sir E. Grey. 

Klobukowski. 



Sir Edward Grey to Sir E. Goschen, British Ambassador at 

Berlin. 

Foreign Office, August i, 19 14. 
Sir, 

I told the German Ambassador to-day that the reply 
•of the German Government with regard to the neutrality 
of Belgium was a matter of very great regret, because the 
neutrality of Belgium affected feeling in this country. If 
Germany could see her way to give the same assurance as 
that which had been given by France it would materially 
contribute to relieve anxiety and tension here. On the 
other hand, if there were a violation of the neutrality of 
Belgium by one combatant while the other respected it, 
it would be extremely difficult to restrain public feeling 
in this country. I said that we had been discussing this 
question at a Cabinet Meeting, and as I was authorised 
to tell him this I gave him a memorandum of It. 

He asked me whether, if Germany gave a promise not 
to violate Belgian neutrality we would engage to remain 
neutral. 

I replied that I could not say that; our hands were still 
free, and we were considering what our attitude should be. 
All I could say was, that our attitude would be determined 
largely by public opinion here, and that the neutrality of 
Belgium would appeal very strongly to public opinion here. 
I did not think that we could give a promise of neutrality 
on that condition alone. 

The Ambassador pressed me as to whether I could not 
formulate conditions on which we would remain neutral. 



92 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

He even suggested that the integrity of France and her 
colonies might be guaranteed. 

I said that I felt obliged to refuse definitely any promise 
to remain neutral on similar terms, and I could only say 
that we must keep our hands free. 

I am, &c., 
E. Grey. 



Sir F. Bertie, British Ambassador at Paris, to 
Sir Edward Grey. 

(Received August i.) 
(Telegraphic.) Paris, August i, 191 4. 

I have had conversation with the Political Director, who 
states that the German Ambassador was informed, on 
calling at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs this morning, 
that the French Government failed to comprehend the 
reason which prompted his communication of yesterday 
evening. It was pointed out to his Excellency that 
general mobilisation in Russia had not been ordered until 
after Austria had declared a general mobilisation, and that 
the Russian Government were ready to demobilise if all 
Powers did likewise. It seemed strange to the French 
Government that in view of this and of the fact that 
Russia and Austria were ready to converse, the German 
Government should have at that moment presented an 
ultimatum at St. Petersburgh requiring immediate de- 
mobilisation by Russia. There were no differences at 
issue between France and Germany, but the German 
Ambassador had made a menacing communication to the 
French Government and had requested an answer the next 
day, intimating that he would have to break off relations 
and leave Paris if the reply were not satisfactory. The 
Ambassador was informed that the French Government 
considered that this was an extraordinary proceeding. 

The German Ambassador, who is to see the Minister for 
Foreign Affairs again this evening, said nothing about de- 
manding his passports, but he stated that he had packed up. 



THE PRETEXT &3 

Sir F. Villiers, British Minister at Brussels, to 
Sir Edivard Grey. 

{Received August i.) 

(Telegraphic.) Brussels, August i, 1914. 

Belgian neutrality. 

The instructions conveyed in your telegram of yesterday 
have been acted upon. 

Belgium expects and desires that other Powers will ob- 
serve and uphold her neutrality, which she intends to main- 
tain to the utmost of her power. In so informing me, 
Minister for Foreign Affairs said that, in the event of the 
violation of the neutrality of their territory, they believed, 
that they were in a position to defend themselves against 
intrusion. The relations between Belgium and her neigh- 
bours were excellent, and there was no reason to suspect 
their intentions; but he thought it well, nevertheless, to be 
prepared against emergencies. 



Sir Edward Grey to Sir E. Goschen, British Ambassador at 

Berlin. 

(Telegraphic.) Foreign Office, August 1, 1914. 

We are informed that authorities at Hamburg have 
forcibly detained steamers belonging to the Great Central 
Company and other British merchant-ships. 

I cannot ascertain on what grounds the detention of 
British ships has been ordered. 

You should request German Government to send imme- 
diate orders that they should be allowed to proceed without 
delay. The effect on public opinion here will be deplorable 
unless this is done. His Majesty's Government, on their 
side, are most anxious to avoid any incident of an aggres- 
sive nature, and the German Government will, I hope, be 
equally careful not to take any step which would make the 
situation between us impossible. 



94 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

Sir Edward Grey to Sir E. Goschen, British Ambassador at 

Berlin. 

(Telegraphic.) Foreign Office, August i, 1914. 

M. De Etter ^ came to-day to communicate the contents 
of a telegram from M. Sazonof,^ dated the 31st of July, 
which are as follows: — 

"The Austro-Hungarian Ambassador declared the readi- 
ness of his Government to discuss the substance of the 
Austrian ultimatum to Servia. M. Sazonof replied by ex- 
pressing his satisfaction, and said it was desirable that the 
discussions should take place in London with the participa- 
tion of the Great Powers. 

"M. Sazonof hoped that the British Government would 
assume the direction of these discussions. The whole of 
Europe would be thankful to them. It would be very im- 
portant that Austria should meanwhile put a stop provi- 
sionally to her military action on Servian territory." 

(The above has been communicated to the six Powers.) 

Sir F. Bertie, British Ambassador at Paris, to 
Sir Edward Grey. 

{Received August i.) 

(Telegraphic.) Paris, August i, 1914. 

President of the Republic has Informed me that German 
Government were trying to saddle Russia with the respon- 
sibility; that it was only aftei a decree of general mobilisa- 
tion had been Issued In Austria that the Emperor of Russia 
ordered a general mobilisation ; that, although the measures 
which the GeiTnan Government have already taken are In 
effect a general mobilisation, they are not so designated; 
that a French general mobilisation will become necessary in 
self-defence, and that France is already forty-eight hours 
behind Germany as regards German military preparations; 
that the French troops have orders not to go nearer to the 

* Counsellor of Russian Embassy in London. 
' Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs, 



THE PRETEXT 95 

German frontier than a distance of lo kilom., so as to avoid 
any grounds for accusations of provocation to Germany, 
whereas the German troops, on the other hand, are actually 
on the French frontier and have made incursions on it; 
that, notwithstanding mobilisations, the Emperor of Russia 
has expressed himself ready to continue his conversations 
with the German Ambassador with a view to preserving 
the peace; that French Government, whose wishes are 
markedly pacific, sincerely desire the preservation of peace 
and do not quite despair, even now, of its being possible to 
avoid war. 



Sir Edward Grey to Sir M. de Bunsen, British Ambassador 

at Vienna. 

(Telegraphic.) Foreign Office, August i, 1914. 

I saw the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador this morning. 
He supplied me with the substance of a telegram which the 
Austro-Hungarian Minister for Foreign Affairs had sent 
to the Austrian Ambassador in Paris. In this telegram 
his Excellency was given instructions to assure the French 
Minister for Foreign Affairs that there was no intention in 
the minds of the Austro-Hungarian Government to impair 
the sovereign rights of Servia or to obtain territorial ag- 
grandisement. The Ambassador added that he was further 
instructed to inform the French Minister for Foreign Af- 
fairs that there was no truth in the report which had been 
published in Paris to the effect that Austria-Hungary in- 
tended to occupy the sanjak. 

Count Mensdorff ^ called again later at the Foreign Of- 
fice. He informed me of a telegram sent yesterday to the 
Austro-Hungarian Ambassador at St. Petersburgh by 
Count Berchtold,^ and gave me the substance. 

It states that Count Berchtold begged the Russian 
Ambassador, whom he sent for yesterday, to do his best 
to remove the wholly erroneous impression in St. Peters- 

* Austro-Hungarian Ambassador in London. 
"Austro-Hungarian Minister for Foreign Affairs. 



96 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

burgh that the "door had been banged" by Austria-Hun- 
gary on all further conversations. The Russian Ambas- 
sador promised to do this. Count Berchtold repeated on 
this occasion to the Russian Ambassador the assurance 
which had already been given at St. Petersburgh, to the 
effect that neither an infraction of Servian sovereign rights 
nor the acquisition of Servian territory was being contem- 
plated by Austria-Hungary. 

Special attention was called by Count Mensdorff to the 
fact that this telegram contains a statement to the effect 
that conversations at St. Petersburgh had not been broken 
off by Austria-Hungary. 

Sir E. Goschen, British Ambassador at Berlin, to 
Sir Edward Grey. 

{Received August 2.) 

(Telegraphic.) Berlin, August i, 1914. 

Your telegram of to-day. 

I have communicated the substance of the above telegram 
to the Secretary of State, and spent a long time arguing 
with him that the chief dispute was between Austria and 
Russia, and that Germany was only drawn in as Austria's 
ally. If therefore Austria and Russia were, as was evident, 
ready to discuss matters and Germany did not desire war 
on her own account, it seemed to me only logical that 
Germany should hold her hand and continue to work for a 
peaceful settlement. Secretary of State said that Austria's 
readiness to discuss was the result of German influence at 
Vienna, and, had not Russia mobilised against Germany, 
all would have been well. But Russia by abstaining from 
answering Germany's demand that she should demobilise, 
had caused Germany to mobilise also. Russia had said 
that her mobilisation did not necessarily imply war, and 
that she could perfectly well remain mobilised for months 
without making war. This was not the case with Germany. 
She had the speed and Russia had the numbers, and the 
safety of the German Empire forbade that Germany should 



THE PRETEXT 97 

allow Russia time to bring up masses of troops from all 
parts of her wide dominions. The situation now was that, 
though the Imperial Government had allowed her several 
hours beyond the specified time, Russia had sent no answer. 
Germany had therefore ordered mobilisation, and the Ger- 
man representative at St. Petersburgh had been instructed 
within a certain time to inform the Russian Government 
that the Imperial Government must regard their refusal 
to an answer as creating a state of war. 

Sir G. Buchanan, British Ambassador at St. Petersburgh, 
to Sir Edward Grey. 

(Received August 2.) 
(Telegraphic.) St. Petersburgh, August i, 1914. 

My telegram of 31st July. 

The Emperor of Russia read his telegram to the German 
Emperor to the German Ambassador at the audience given 
to his Excellency yesterday. No progress whatever was 
made. 

In the evening M. Sazonof had an interview with the 
Austrian Ambassador who, not being definitely instructed 
by his Government, did his best to deflect the conversation 
towards a general discussion of the relations between 
Austria-Hungary and Russia instead of keeping to the 
question of Servia. In reply the Minister for Foreign 
Affairs expressed his desire that these relations should 
remain friendly, and said that, taken in general, they were 
perfectly satisfactory; but the real question which they 
had to solve at this moment was whether Austria was to 
crush Servia and to reduce her to the status of a vassal, 
or whether she was to leave Servia a free and independent 
State. In these circumstances, while the Servian question 
was unsolved, the abstract discussion of the relations be- 
tween Austria-Hungary and Russia was a waste of time. 
The only place where a successful discussion of this ques- 
tion could be expected was London, and any such discussion 
was being made impossible by the action of Austria-Hun- 



98 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

gary in subjecting Belgrade, a virtually unfortified town, 
to bombardment. 

M. Sazonof informed the French Ambassador and my- 
self this morning of his conversation with the Austrian 
Ambassador. He went on to say that during the Balkan 
crisis he had made it clear to the Austrian Government that 
war with Russia must inevitably follow an Austrian attack 
on Servia. It was clear that Austrian domination of Servia 
was as intolerable for Russia as the dependence of the 
Netherlands on Germany would be to Great Britain. It 
was, in fact, for Russia a question of life and death. The 
policy of Austria had throughout been both tortuous and 
immoral, and she thought that she could treat Russia with 
defiance, secure in the support of her German ally. Simi- 
larly the policy of Germany had been an equivocal and 
double-faced policy, and it mattered little whether the Ger- 
man Government knew or did not know the terms of the 
Austrian ultimatum; what mattered was, that her inter- 
vention with the Austrian Government had been postponed 
until the moment had passed when its influence would have 
been felt. Germany was unfortunate in her representatives 
in Vienna and St. Petersburgh : the former was a violent 
Russophobe who had urged Austria on, the latter had re- 
ported to his Government that Russia would never go to 
war. M. Sazonof was completely weary of the ceaseless 
endeavours he had made to avoid a war. No suggestion 
held out to him had been refused. He had accepted the 
proposal for a conference of four, for mediation by Great 
Britain and Italy, for direct conversation between Austria 
and Russia ; but Germany and Austria-Hungary had either 
rendered these attempts for peace ineffective by evasive 
replies or had refused them altogether. The action of the 
Austro-Hungarian Government and the German prepara- 
tions had forced the Russian Government to order mobili- 
sation, and the mobilisation of Germany had created a des- 
perate situation. 

M. Sazonof added that the formula of which the text is 
contained in my telegram of 31st July, had been forwarded 
by the Russian Government to Vienna, and he would 



THE PRETEXT 99 

adhere to it if you could obtain its acceptance before the 
frontier was crossed by German troops. In no case would 
Russia begin hostilities first. 

I now see no possibility of a general war being avoided 
unless the agreement of France and Germany can be ob- 
tained to keep their armies mobihsed on their own sides of 
the frontier, as Russia has expressed her readiness to do, 
pending a last attempt to reach a settlement of the present 
crisis. 

Sir F. Bertie, British Ambassador at Paris, to 
Sir Edward Grey. 

{Received August i.) 

(Telegraphic.) Paris, August i, 1914. 

The Minister of War again sent for the military attache 
this evening, as he said he wished to keep him informed 
of the situation. He laid great stress on the fact that the 
zone of 10 kilom., which he had arranged between the 
French troops and the German frontier, and which was 
still occupied by peasants, was a proof of the French en- 
deavours to commit no provocative act. 

Sir M. de Bunsen, British Ambassador at Vienna, to 
Sir Edward Grey. 

{Received August 2.) 

(Telegraphic.) Vienna, August i, 1914. 

I am to be received to-morrow by Minister for Foreign 
Affairs. This afternoon he is to see the French and 
Russian Ambassadors. I have just been informed by 
the Russian Ambassador of German ultimatum requiring 
that Russia should demobilise within twelve hours. On 
being asked by the Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs 
whether the inevitable refusal of Russia to yield to this 
curt summons meant war, the German Ambassador replied 
that Germany would be forced to mobilise if Russia refused. 
Russian Ambassador at Vienna thinks that war is almost 



100 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

inevitable, and that as mobilisation is too expensive to be 
kept for long, Germany will attack Russia at once. He 
says that the so-called mobilisation of Russia amounted 
to nothing more than that Russia had taken military mea- 
sures corresponding to those taken by Germany. There 
seems to be even greater tension between Germany and 
Russia than there is between Austria and Russia. Russia 
would according to the Russian Ambassador, be satisfied 
even now with assurance respecting Servian integrity and 
independence. He says that Russia had no intention to 
attack Austria. He is going again to-day to point out to the 
Minister for Foreign Affairs that most terrific consequences 
must ensue from refusal to make this slight concession. 
This time Russia would fight to the last extremity. I agree 
with his Excellency that the German Ambassador at Vienna 
desired war from the first, and that his strong personal 
bias probably coloured his action here. The Russian Am- 
bassador is convinced that the German Government also 
desired war from the first. 

It is the intention of the French Ambassador to speak 
earnestly to the Minister for Foreign Affairs to-day on the 
extreme danger of the situation, and to ask whether pro- 
posals to serve as a basis of mediation from any quarter 
are being considered. There is great anxiety to know what 
England will do. I fear that nothing can alter the deter- 
mination of Austro-Hungarian Government to proceed on 
their present course, if they have made up their mind with 
the approval of Germany. 



M. Rene Viviani, President of the Council, Minister for 
Foreign Affairs, to the French Ambassadors at Lon- 
don, St. Petersburgh, Berlin, Vienna, Rome. 

Paris, August i, 1914. 

Two demarches were made yesterday evening by the 
Austrian Ambassadors — the one at Paris, which was rather 
vague, the other at St. Petersburgh, precise and conciliatory. 



THE PRETEXT 101 

The deduction from these facts is, that Austria would at 
last show herself ready to come to an agreement, just as 
the Russian Government is ready to enter into negotiations 
on the basis of the British proposal. 

Unfortunately these arrangements which allowed one to 
hope for a peaceful solution appear, in fact, to have been 
rendered useless by the attitude of Germany. This Power 
has in fact presented an ultimatum giving the Russian Gov- 
ernment twelve hours in which to agree to the demobili- 
sation of their forces not only as against Germany, but also 
as against Austria; this time-limit expires at noon. The 
ultimatum is not justified, for Russia has accepted the 
British proposal which implies a cessation of military pre- 
paration by all the Powers. 

The attitude of Germany proves that she wishes for war. 
And she wishes for it against France. Yesterday when 
Herr von Schoen came to the Quai d'Orsay to ask what 
attitude France proposed to take in case of a Russo-German 
conflict, the German Ambassador, although there has been 
no direct dispute between France and Germany, and al- 
though from the beginning of the crisis we have used all 
our efforts for a peaceful solution and are still continuing 
to do so, added that he asked me to present his respects 
and thanks to the President of the Republic, and asked 
that we would be good enough to make arrangements as to 
him personally (des dispositions pour sa pro pre personne) ; 
we know also that he has already put the archives of the 
Embassy in safety. This attitude of breaking off diplo- 
matic relations without any direct dispute, and although he 
has not received any definitely negative answer, is charac- 
teristic of the determination of Germany to make war 
against France. The want of sincerity in her peaceful 
protestations is shown by the rupture which she is forcing 
upon Europe at a time when Austria had at last agreed 
with Russia to begin negotiations. 

Rene Viviani. 



102 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

M. Jules CamboUj French Ambassador at Berlin, to M'. 
Rene Viznani, President of the Council, Minister for 
Foreign Affairs. 

Berlin, August i, 1914. 

My Russian colleague received yesterday evening two 
telegrams from M. Sazonof advising him that the Austrian 
Ambassador at St. Petersburgh had explained that his Gov- 
ermnent was ready to discuss the note to Servia with the 
Russian Government even as to its basis; M. Sazonof an- 
swered that in his opinion these conversations should take 
place in London. 

The ultimatum to Russia can only do away with the 
last chance of peace which these conversations still seemed 
to leave. The question may be asked whether in such 
circumstances the acceptance by Austria was serious, and 
had not the object of throwing the responsibility of the 
conflict on to Russia. 

My British colleague during the night made a pressing 
appeal to Herr von Jagow's feelings of humanity. The 
latter answered that the matter had gone too far and that 
they must wait for the Russian answer to the Gennan 
ultimatum. But he told Sir Edward Goschen that the ulti- 
matum required that the Russians should countermand 
their mobilisation, not only as against Germany but also 
as against Austria; my British colleague was much aston- 
ished at this, and said that it did not seem possible for 
Russia to accept this last point. 

Germany's ultimatum coming at the very moment when 
an agreement seemed about to be established between Vi- 
enna and St. Petersburgh is characteristic of her warlike 
policy. 

In truth the conflict was between Russia and Austria 
only, and Germany could only intervene as an ally of Aus- 
tria; in these circumstances, as the two Powers which were 
interested as principals were prepared for conversations, 
it is impossible to understand why Germany should send 
an ultimatum to Russia instead of continuing like all the 
other Powers to work for a peaceful solution, unless she 
desired war on her own account. J. Cambon. 



THE PRETEXT 103 

M. Rene Viviani, President of the Council, Minister for 
Foreign Affairs, to the French Ambassadors at Lon- 
don, St. Petershurgh, Berlin, Vienna, Rome, Madrid, 
Constantinople. 

Paris, August 2, 1914. 

This morning, French territory was violated by German 
troops at Ciry and near Longwy. They are marching on 
the fort which bears the latter name. Elsewhere the Cus- 
tom House at Delle has twice been fired upon. Finally, 
German troops have also violated this morning the neutral 
territory of Luxemburg. 

You will at once use this information to lay stress on the 
fact that the German Government is committing itself to 
acts of war against France without provocation on our 
part, or any previous declaration of war, whilst we have 
scrupulously respected the zone of ten kilometres which 
we have maintained, even since the mobilisation, between 
our troops and the frontier. 

Rene Viviani. 

M. Rene Viviani, President of the Council, Minister for 
Foreign Affairs, to the Representatives of France 
abroad. 

Paris, August 2, 1914. 

The Russian Ambassador informs me that Germany has 
just declared war on Russia, notwithstanding the negotia- 
tions which are proceeding, and at a moment when Austria- 
Hungary was agreeing to discuss with the Powers even the 
basis of her conflict with Servia. 

Rene Viviani. 

Sir E. Goschen, British Ambassador at Berlin, to 
Sir Edward Grey. 
{Received August 2.) 
(Telegraphic.) Berlin, August 2, 1914. 

Secretary of State has just informed me that, owing to 
certain Russian troops having crossed frontier, Germany 
and Russia a,re now in a state of war. 



104 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 



Sir F. Villiers, British Minister at Brussels, to 
Sir Edward Grey. 

(Received August 2.) 

(Telegraphic.) Brussels, August 2, 1914. 

The news that a German force has entered Grand Duchy 
of Luxemburg has been officially confirmed to the Belgian 
Government. 

Minister of State, Luxemburg, to Sir Edward Grey. 



{Received 

(Telegraphique.) 
Luxembourg, le 2 aout, 1914. 

J'ai I'honneur de porter 
a la connaissance de votre 
Excellence les faits sui- 
vants : 

Dimanche, 2 aout, de 
grand matin, les troupes 
allemandes, d'apres les in- 
formations qui sont par- 
venues au Gouvernement 
Grand ducal a I'heure actu- 
elle, ont penetre sur le 
territoire luxembourgeois 
par les ponts de Wasserbillig 
et de Remich, se dirigeant 
specialement vers le sud 
du pays et vers la ville de 
Luxembourg, capitale du 
Grand Duche. Un certain 
nombre de trains blindes 
avec des troupes et des 
munitions ont ete ache- 
mines par la voie de chemin 
de fer de Wasserbillig a 



August 2.) 

(Translation.) 

(Telegraphic.) 

Luxemburg, August 2, 1914. 

I have the honour to 
bring to your Excellency's 
notice the following facts : 

On Sunday, the 2nd 
August, very early, the 
German troops, according 
to the information which has 
up to now reached the 
Grand Ducal Government, 
penetrated into Luxemburg 
territory by the bridges of 
Wasserbillig and Remich, 
and proceeded particularly 
towards the south and in the 
direction of Luxemburg, the 
capital of the Grand Duchy, 
A certain number of ar- 
moured trains with troops 
and ammunition have been 
sent along the railway line 
from Wasserbillig to Lux- 
emburg, where their arrival 
is expected. These occur- 



THE PRETEXT 



105 



Luxembourg, ou Ton s'at- 
tend de les voir arriver. 
D'un instant a I'autre, ces 
faits impliquent des actes 
manifestement contraire a 
la neutralite du Grand 
Duche garantie par le 
Traite de Londres de 1867. 
Le Gouvernement luxem- 
bourgeois n'a pas manque 
de protester energiquement 
contre cette agression au- 
pres des representants de 
Sa Majeste I'Empereur 
d'Allemagne a Luxembourg. 
Une protestation identique 
va etre transmise telegra- 
phiquement au Secretaire 
d'Etat pour les Affaires 
fitrangeres a Berlin. 



rences constitute acts which 
are manifestly contrary to 
the neutrality of the Grand 
Duchy as guaranteed by the 
Treaty of London of 1867. 
The Luxemburg Govern- 
ment have not failed to 
address an energetic pro- 
test against this aggression 
to the representatives of 
His Majesty the German 
Emperor at Luxemburg. 
An identical protest will 
be sent by telegraph to 
the Secretary of State for 
Foreign Affairs at Berlin. 



M. Rene Viviani, President of the Council, Minister for 
Foreign Affairs, to M. Jules Cambon, French Ambas- 
sador at Berlin. 

(Telegram communicated to French Representatives 
abroad. ) 

Paris, August 3, 1914. 

I request you to ask for your passports and to leave 
Berlin at once with the staff of the Embassy, leaving the 
charge of French interests and the care of the archives to 
the Spanish Ambassador. I request you at the same time 
to protest in writing against the violation of the neutrality 
of Luxemburg by German troops, of which notice has 
been given by the Prime Minister of Luxemburg; against 
the ultimatum addressed to the Belgian Government by 
the German Ministers at Brussels to force upon them the 
violation of Belgian neutrality, and to require of that 
country that she should facilitate military operations 



106 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

against France on Belgian territory; finally against the 
false allegation of an allied projected invasion of these 
two countries by French armies, by which he has attempted 
to justify the state of war which he declares henceforth 
exists between Germany and France. 

Rene Viviani. 



Sir F. Villiers, British Minister at Brussels, to 

Sir Edward Grey. 

{Received August 3.) 

(Telegraphic.) Brussels, August 3, 1914. 

French Government have offered through their military- 
attache the support of five French army corps to the 
Belgian Government. Following reply has been sent 
to-day : — 

"We are sincerely grateful to the French Government 
for offering eventual support. In the actual circumstances, 
however, we do not propose to appeal to the guarantee 
of the Powers. Belgian Government will decide later 
on the action which they may think it necessary to 
take." 



Sir Edward Grey to Sir F. Bertie, British Ambassador at 

Paris. 

Foreign Office, August 3, 1914. 
Sir, 

On the I St instant the French Ambassador made the 
following communication : — 

"In reply to the German Government's intimation of 
the fact that ultimatums have been presented to France 
and Russia, and to the question as to what were the in- 
tentions of Italy, the Marquis di San Giuliano replied : — 

" 'The war undertaken by Austria, and the conse- 
quences which might result, had, in the words of the 
German Ambassador himself, an aggressive object. Both 
were therefore in conflict with the purely defensive char- 



THE PRETEXT 107 

acter of the Triple Alliance, and in such circumstances Italy 
would remain neutral.' " 

In making this communication, M. Cambon was in- 
structed to lay stress upon the Italian declaration that the 
present war was not a defensive but an aggressive war, 
and that, for this reason, the casus foederis under the terms 
of the Triple Alliance did not arise. 

I am, &c., 
E. Grey. 



Sir Edward Grey to Sir E. Goschen, British Ambassador 

at Berlin. 

(Telegraphic.) Foreign Office, August 4, 1914. 

The King of the Belgians has made an appesil to His 
Majesty the King for diplomatic intervention on behalf 
of Belgium in the following terms : — 

"Remembering the numerous proofs of your Majesty's 
friendship and that of your predecessor, and the friendly 
attitude of England in 1870 and the proof of friendship you 
have just given us again, I make a supreme appeal to the 
diplomatic intervention of your Majesty's Government to 
safeguard the integrity of Belgium." 

His Majesty's Government are also informed that the 
German Government have delivered to the Belgian Gov- 
ernment a note proposing friendly neutrality entailing free 
passage through Belgian territory, and promising to main- 
tain the independence and integrity of the kingdom and its 
possessions at the conclusion of peace, threatening in case 
of refusal to treat Belgium as an enemy. An answer was 
requested within twelve hours. 

We also understand that Belgium has categorically 
refused this as a flagrant violation of the law of 
nations. 

His Majesty's Government are bound to protest against 
this violation of a treaty to which Germany is a party in 
common with themselves, and must request an assurance 
that the demand made upon Belgium will not be proceeded 



108 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

with and that her neutrality will be respected by Germany. 
You should ask for an immediate reply. 



Sir Edward Grey to Sir E. Goschen, British Ambassador at 

Berlin. 

(Telegraphic.) Foreign Office, August 4, 1914. 

I continue to receive numerous complaints from British 
firms as to the detention of their ships at Hamburg, Cux- 
haven, and other German ports. This action on the part 
of the German authorities is totally unjustifiable. It is 
in direct contravention of international law and of the 
assurances given to your Excellency by the Imperial Chan- 
cellor. You should demand the immediate release of all 
British ships if such release has not yet been given. 



German Foreign Secretary to Prince Lichnowsky, German 
Ambassador in London. 

{Communicated by German Embassy, August 4.) 

(Telegraphic.) Berlin, August 4, 1914. 

Please dispel any mistrust that may subsist on the part 
of the British Government with regard to our intentions, 
by repeating most positively formal assurance that, even 
in the case of armed conflict with Belgium, Germany will, 
under no pretence whatever, annex Belgian territory. Sin- 
cerity of this declaration is borne out by fact that we sol- 
emnly pledged our word to Holland strictly to respect her 
neutrality. It is obvious that we could not profitably an- 
nex Belgian territory without making at the same time 
territorial acquisitions at expense of Holland. Please im- 
press upon Sir E. Grey that German army could not be 
exposed to French attack across Belgium, which was 
planned according to absolutely unimpeachable informa- 
tion. Germany had consequently to disregard Belgian neu- 
trality, it being for her a question of life or death to pre- 
vent French advance. 



THE PRETEXT 109 

Sir F. Villiers, British Minister at Brussels, to 
Sir Edward Grey. 

{Received August 4.) 

(Telegraphic.) Brussels, August 4, 1914. 

Military attache has been informed at War Office that 
German troops have entered Belgian territory, and that 
Liege has been summoned to surrender by small party of 
Germans who, however, were repulsed. 

Sir Edward Grey to Sir E. Goschen, British Ambassador 

at Berlin. 

(Telegraphic.) Foreign Office, August 4, 1914. 

We hear that Germany has addressed note to Belgian 
Minister for Foreign Affairs stating that German Govern- 
ment will be compelled to carry out, if necessary, by force 
of arms, the measures considered indispensable. 

We are also informed that Belgian territory has been 
violated at Gemmenich. 

In these circimistances, and in view of the fact that 
Grermany declined to give the same assurance respecting 
Belgium as France gave last week in reply to our request 
made simultaneously at Berlin and Paris, we must repeat 
that request, and ask that a satisfactory reply to it and to 
my telegram of this morning be received here by twelve 
o'clock to-night. If not, you are instructed to ask for your 
passports, and to say that His Majesty's Government feel 
bound to take all steps in their power to uphold the neu- 
trality of Belgium and the observance of a treaty to which 
Germany is as much a party as ourselves. 

Sir E. Goschen, British Ambassador in Berlin, to 
Sir Edward Grey. 

London, August 8, 1914. 
Sir, 

In accordance with the instructions contained In your 
telegram of the 4th instant I called upon the Secretary of 



110 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

State that afternoon and inquired, in the name of His 
Majesty's Government, whether the Imperial Government 
would refrain from violating Belgian neutrality. Herr von 
Jagow ^ at once replied that he was sorry to say that his 
answer must be ''No," as, in consequence of the German 
troops having crossed the frontier that morning, Belgian 
neutrality had been already violated. Herr von Jagow 
again went into the reasons why the Imperial Government 
had been obliged to take this step, namely, that they had 
to advance into France by the quickest and easiest way, 
so as to be able to get well ahead with their operations 
and endeavour to strike some decisive blow as early as 
possible. It was a matter of life and death for them, as 
if they had gone by the more southern route they could 
not have hoped, in view of the paucity of roads and the 
strength of the fortresses, to have got through without 
formidable, opposition entailing great loss of time. This 
loss of time would have meant time gained by the Russians 
for bringing up their troops to the German frontier. Ra- 
pidity of action was the great German asset, while that of 
Russia was an inexhaustible supply of troops. I pointed 
out to Herr von Jagow that his fait accompli of the viola- 
tion of the Belgian frontier rendered, as he would readily 
understand, the situation exceedingly grave, and I asked 
him whether there was not still time to draw back and 
avoid possible consequences, which both he and I would 
deplore. He replied that, for the reasons he had given 
me, it was now impossible for them to draw back. 

During the afternoon I received your further telegram 
of the same date, and, in compliance with the instructions 
therein contained, I again proceeded to the Imperial 
Foreign Office and informed the Secretary of State that 
unless the Imperial Government could give the assurance 
by 12 o'clock that night that they would proceed no fur- 
ther with their violation of the Belgian frontier and stop 
their advance, I had been instructed to demand my 
passports and inform the Imperial Government that His 
Majesty's Government would have to take all steps In their 

* German Secretary of State. 



THE PRETEXT 111 

power to uphold the neutrahty of Belgium and the observ- 
ance of a treaty to which Germany was as much a party 
as themselves, 

Herr von Jagow replied that to his great regret he could 
give no other answer than that which he had given me 
earlier in the day, namely, that the safety of the Empire 
rendered it absolutely necessary that the Imperial troops 
should advance through Belgium. I gave his Excellency 
a written summary of your telegram and, pointing out 
that you had mentioned 12 o'clock as the time when His 
Majesty's Government would expect an answer, asked him 
whether, in view of the terrible consequences which would 
necessarily ensue, it were not possible even at the last mo- 
ment that their answer should be reconsidered. He replied 
that if the time given were even twenty-four hours or more, 
his answer must be the same. I said that in that case I 
should have to demand my passports. This interview took 
place at about 7 o'clock. In a short conversation which 
ensued Herr von Jagow expressed his poignant regret at 
the crumbling of his entire policy and that of the Chancel- 
lor, which had been to make friends with Great Britain, 
and then, through Great Britain, to get closer to France. 
I said that this sudden end to my work in Berlin was to 
me also a matter of deep regret and disappointment, but 
that he must understand that under the circumstances and 
in view of our engagements. His Majesty's Government 
could not possibly have acted otherwise than they had 
done. 

I then said that I should like to go and see the Chancellor, 
as it might be, perhaps, the last time I should have an op- 
portunity of seeing him. He begged me to do so. I found 
the Chancellor very agitated. His Excellency at once be- 
gan a harangue, which lasted for about twenty minutes. 
He said that the step taken by His Majesty's Government 
was terrible to a degree; just for a word — "neutrality," 
a word which in war-time had so often been disregarded 
— just for a scrap of paper Great Britain was going to 
make war on a kindred nation who desired nothing better 
than to be friends with her. All his efforts in that di- 



112 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

rection had been rendered useless by this last terrible step, 
and the policy to which, as I knew, he had devoted him- 
self since his accession to office had tumbled down like 
a house of cards. What we had done was unthinkable ; it 
was like striking a man from behind while he was fighting 
for his life against two assailants. He held Great Britain 
responsible for all the terrible events that might happen. 
I protested strongly against that statement, and said that, 
in the same way as he and Herr von Jagow wished me to 
understand that for strategical reasons it was a matter of 
life and death to Germany to advance through Belgium 
and violate the latter's neutrality, so I would wish him to 
understand that it was, so to speak, a matter of "life 
and death" for the honour of Great Britain that she should 
keep her solemn engagement to do her utmost to defend 
Belgium's neutrality if attacked. That solemn compact 
simply had to be kept, or what confidence could any one 
have in engagements given by Great Britain in the future? 
The Chancellor said, "But at what price will that compact 
have been kept. Has the British Government thought of 
that?" I hinted to his Excellency as plainly as I could 
that fear of consequences could hardly be regarded as an 
excuse for breaking solemn engagements, but his Excel- 
lency was so excited, so evidently overcome by the news of 
our action, and so little disposed to hear reason that I re- 
frained from adding fuel to the flame by further argument. 
As I was leaving he said that tlie blow of Great Britain 
joining Germany's enemies was all the greater that almost 
up to the last moment he and his Government had been 
working with us and supporting our eflforts to maintain 
peace between Austria and Russia. I said that this was 
part of the tragedy which saw the two nations fall apart 
just at the moment when the relations between them had 
been more friendly and cordial than they had been for years. 
Unfortunately, notwithstanding our efforts to maintain 
peace between Russia and Austria, the war had spread 
and had brought us face to face with a situation which, 
if we held to our engagements, we could not possibly 
avoid, and which unfortunately entailed our separation 



THE PRETEXT 113 

from our late fellow-workers. He would readily under- 
stand that no one regretted this more than I. 

After this somewhat painful interview I returned to the 
embassy and drew up a telegraphic report of what had 
passed. This telegram was handed in at the Central Tele- 
graph Office a little before 9 p.m. It was accepted by that 
office, but apparently never despatched.^ 

At about 9.30 P.M. Herr von Zimmermann, the Under- 
Secretary of State, came to see me. After expressing his 
deep regret that the very friendly official and personal 
relations between us were about to cease, he asked me 
casually whether a demand for passports was equivalent 
to a declaration of war. I said that such an authority on 
international law as he was known to be must know as 
well or better than I what was usual in such cases. I added 
that there were many cases where diplomatic relations 
had been broken off, and, nevertheless, war had not en- 
sued; but that in this case he would have seen from my 
instructions, of which I had given Herr von Jagow a 
written summary, that His Majesty's Government expected 
an answer to a definite question by 12 o'clock that night 
and that in default of a satisfactory answer they would 
be forced to take such steps as their engagements required. 
Herr Zimmermann said that that was, in fact, a declara- 
tion of war, as the Imperial Government could not possibly 
give the assurance required either that night or any other 
night. 

In the meantime, after Herr Zimmermann left me, a 
flying sheet, issued by the Berliner Tagehlatt, was circu- 
lated stating that Great Britain had declared war against 
Germany. The immediate result of this news was the 
assemblage of an exceedingly excited and unruly mob 
before His Majesty's Embassy. The small force of police 
which had been sent to guard the embassy was soon over- 
powered, and the attitude of the mob became more 
threatening. We took no notice of this demonstration 
as long as it was confined to noise, but when the crash of 
glass and the landing of cobble stones into the drawing- 

* This telegram never reached the Foreign Office. 



114 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

room, where we were all sitting, warned us that the situa- 
tion was getting unpleasant, I telephoned to the Foreign 
Office an account of what was happening. Herr von Jagow 
at once informed the Chief of Police, and an adequate force 
of mounted police, sent with great promptness, very soon 
cleared the street. From that moment on we were well 
guarded, and no more direct unpleasantness occurred. 

After order had been restored Herr von Jagow came to 
see me and expressed his most heartfelt regrets at what 
had occurred. He said that the behaviour of his country- 
men had made him feel more ashamed than he had words 
to express. It was an indelible stain on the reputation of 
Berlin. He said that the flying sheet circulated in the 
streets had not been authorised by the Government; in 
fact, the Chancellor had asked him by telephone whether 
he thought that such a statement should be issued, and he 
had replied, "Certainly not, until the morning." It was 
in consequence of his decision to that effect that only a 
small force of police had been sent to the neighbourhood of 
the embassy, as he had thought that the presence of a 
large force would inevitably attract attention and perhaps 
lead to disturbances. It was the "pestilential Tageblatt," 
which had somehow got hold of the news, that had upset 
his calculations. He had heard rumours that the mob 
had been excited to violence by gestures made and missiles 
thrown from the embassy, but he felt sure that that was 
not true (I was able soon to assure him that the report had 
no foundation whatever), and even if it was, it was no 
excuse for the disgraceful scenes which had taken place. 
He feared that I would take home with me a sorry impres- 
sion of Berlin manners in moments of excitement. In fact, 
no apology could have been more full and complete. 

On the following morning, the 5th August, the Emperor 
sent one of His Majesty's aides-de-camp to me with the 
following message : — 

"The Emperor has charged me to express to your 
Excellency his regret for the occurrences of last night, but 
to tell you at the same time that you will gather from those 
occurrences an idea of the feelings of his people respecting 



THE PRETEXT 116 

the action of Great Britain in joining with other nations 
against her old allies of Waterloo. His Majesty also begs 
that you will tell the King that he has been proud of the 
titles of British Field-Marshal and British Admiral, but 
that in consequence of what has occurred he must now 
at once divest himself of those titles." 

I would add that the above message lost none of its 
ascerbity by the manner of its delivery. 

On the other hand, I should like to state that I received 
all through this trying time nothing but courtesy at the 
hands of Herr von Jagow and the officials of the Imperial 
Foreign Office. At about ii o'clock on the same morning 
Count Wedel handed me my passports — which I had earlier 
in the day demanded in writing — and told me that he 
had been instructed to confer with me as to the route 
which I should follow for my return to England. He said 
that he had understood that I preferred the route via the 
Hook of Holland to that via Copenhagen ; they had there- 
fore arranged that I should go by the former route, only I 
should have to wait till the following morning. I agreed 
to this, and he said that I might be quite assured that 
there would be no repetition of the disgraceful scenes of 
the preceding night as full precautions would be taken. 
He added that they were doing all in their power to have 
a restaurant car attached to the train, but it was rather a 
difficult matter. He also brought me a charming letter 
from Herr von Jagow couched in the most friendly terms. 
The day was passed in packing up such articles as time 
allowed. 

The night passed quietly without any incident. In the 
morning a strong force of police was posted along the usual 
route to the Lehrter Station, while the embassy was 
smuggled away in taxi-cabs to the station by side-streets. 
We there suffered no molestation whatever, and avoided 
the treatment meted out by the crowd to my Russian 
and French colleagues. Count Wedel met us at the station 
to say good-bye on behalf of Herr von Jagow and to see 
that all the arrangements ordered for our comfort had 
been properly carried out. A retired colonel of the Guards 



116 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

accompanied the train to the Dutch frontier and was ex- 
ceedingly kind in his efforts to prevent the great crowds 
which thronged the platforms at every station where we 
stopped from insulting us; but beyond the yelling of patri- 
otic songs and a few jeers and insulting gestures we had 
really nothing to complain of during our tedious journey 
to the Dutch frontier. 

Before closing this long account of our last days in Berlin 
I should like to place on record and bring to your notice 
the quite admirable behaviour of my staff under the most 
trying circumstances possible. One and all, they worked 
night and day with scarcely any rest, and I cannot praise 
too highly the cheerful zeal with which counsellor, naval 
and military attaches, secretaries, and the two young at- 
taches buckled to their work and kept their nerve with 
often a yelling mob outside and inside hundreds of British 
subjects clamouring for advice and assistance. I was proud 
to have such a staff to work with, and feel most grateful 
to them all for the invaluable assistance and support, often 
exposing them to considerable personal risk, which they 
so readily and cheerfully gave to me. 

I should also like to mention the great assistance ren- 
dered to us all by my American colleague, Mr. Gerard,^ 
and his staff. Undeterred by the hooting and hisses with 
which he was often greeted by the mob on entering and 
leaving the embassy, his Excellency came repeatedly to 
see me to ask how he could help us and to make arrange- 
ments for the safety of stranded British subjects. He 
extricated many of these from extremely difficult situations 
at some personal risk to himself, and his calmness and 
savoir-faire and his firmness in dealing with the Imperial 
authorities gave full assurance that the protection of Brit- 
ish subjects and interests could not have been left in more 
efficient and able hands. 

I have, &c., 

W. E. GOSCHEN. 
'American Ambassador in Berlin. 



IV 



THE responsibility: some GERMAN AND NEUTRAL 
VERDICTS 

We believe that to an attentive reader of the above 
extracts the following facts will be clear : — 

(i) That German statesmen were supporting and even 
encouraging Austria in her designs upon Serbia, although 
they were well aware that, in so doing, they were provoking 
a European war. 

(2) That it was not, indeed, desired either in Germany 
or Austria that Serbia should give way to the Austrian 
demands. 

(3) That it was the general opinion that Germany was 
in a position to influence in any way she chose the counsels 
of Austria, who for years past had been drifting into a 
state of vassalage to her. 

(4) That Germany sent her ultimatum to Russia and 
France at the moment when Austria had expressed her 
approval of the proposal to arbitrate. 

(5) That Germany was most anxious that England 
should stand aside while she struck down her rivals in 
Europe. 

(6) That the only moments when she seemed sincerely 
desirous of recommending moderation to Austria were 
when she feared the intervention of England. 

(7) That the Allies strove earnestly for peace; that Ger- 
man statesmen themselves acknowledged the efforts of 
Lord Grey in that connection.^ 

(8) That Italy, who was the ally of Germany and Aus- 
tria and bound to assist them in case they were attacked, 
considered that in this case she was not called upon 

^See pp. 88 and 112. 

117 



118 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

to do so, seeing that they were themselves the ag- 
gressors. 

And indeed Italy had good reason to look upon them as 
such, seeing that on another occasion, twelve months pre- 
viously, Austria had officially communicated to her her 
intention of provoking a war with Serbia. This fact was 
disclosed by Signor Giolitti, Italian ex-Premier, in the 
Chamber of Deputies on December 5, 1914. He stated 
that on August 9, 1913, Austria confided to Italy that "in 
common accord with Germany" she was about to deliver 
an ultimatum to Serbia and that the ultimatum was of 
substantially the same tenor as that actually sent in July 
1914. "The most damning evidence of German duplicity 
during the close of July, 1914, is afforded by the facts 
disclosed in the despatches exchanged between the Italian 
Premier and the Italian Foreign Secretary in August, 
1913."! 

Those who still entertain any doubt as to the guilt of 
the Central Powers will do well to note the following opin- 
ions expressed by men who cannot possibly be accused of 
bias. Mr. James M. Beck, one of the leaders of the Amer- 
ican Bar and late Assistant Attorney-General of the United 
States, considers that, in this matter, the judgment of an 
impartial court would be as follows : — 

"(i) That Germany and Austria, in a time of profound 
peace, secretly concerted to impose their will upon Europe 
in a matter affecting the balance of power. Whether in 
so doing they intended to precipitate a European war to 
determine the hegemony of Europe is not satisfactorily 
established although their whole course of conduct suggests 
this as a possibility. They made war almost inevitable 
by (a) issuing an ultimatum that was grossly unreasonable 
and disproportionate to any grievance that Austria may 
have had, and (b) in giving to Servia, and Europe, insuffi- 
cient time to consider the rights and obligations of all 
interested nations. 

^Kaiser, Krupp and Kultur, p. 28. 



THE RESPONSIBILITY 119 

"(2) That Germany had at all times the power to induce 
Austria to preserve a reasonable and conciliatory course, 
but at no time effectively exerted that influence. On the 
contrary, it certainly abetted, and possibly instigated, Aus- 
tria in its unreasonable course, 

"(3) That England, France, Italy and Russia, through- 
out the diplomatic controversy, sincerely worked for peace, 
and in this spirit not only overlooked the original miscon- 
duct of Austria, but made every reasonable concession in 
the hope of preserving peace. 

"(4) That, Austria having mobilised its army, Russia 
was reasonably justified in mobilising its forces. Such act 
of mobilisation was the right of any sovereign State, and, 
as long as the Russian armies did not cross the border or 
take any aggressive action, no other nation had any just 
right to complain, each having the same right to make 
similar preparations. 

"(5) That Germany, in abruptly declaring war against 
Russia for failure to demobilise, when the other Powers 
had offered to make any reasonable concession and 
peace parleys were still in progress, precipitated the 
war. 

"(6) That the invasion of Belgium by Germany was 
without any provocation and in violation of Belgium's 
inherent rights as a sovereign State. The sanctity of its 
territory does not depend exclusively upon the Treaty of 
1839 or the Hague Convention, but upon fundamental and 
axiomatic principles of international law. These treaties 
were simply declaratory of Belgium's rights as a sovereign 
nation and simply reaffirmed by a special covenant the duty 
of Germany and the other Powers to respect the neutrality 
of Belgium. 

"(7) England was justified in its declaration of war 
upon Germany, not only because of its direct interests in 
the neutrality of Belgium, but also because of the ethical 
duty of the strong nations to protect the weak upon 
adequate occasion from indefensible wrong. Apart from 
this general ethical justification, England was, under the 
Treaty of 1839, under an especial obligation to defend the 



120 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

neutrality of Belgium, and had it failed to respect that 
obligation it would have broken its solemn covenant." * 

He adds that — 

"The German nation has been plunged into this abyss 
by its scheming statesmen and its self-centred and highly 
neurotic Kaiser, who, in the twentieth century, sincerely 
believes that he is a proxy of Almighty God on earth, and 
therefore infallible." 

The author of J' Accuse, a work published anonymously 
in Lausanne by a German and a German patriot, writes 
as follows: — 

"The points in the indictment against Germany I sum- 
marise in the following sentences — 

" ( I ) Germany gave Austria a free hand against Serbia, 
although she was well aware that a European conflict must 
arise out of that between Serbia and Austria. 

"(2) She allowed Austria to address to Serbia an ulti- 
matum with exorbitant demands, and, notwithstanding an 
almost complete compliance with these demands, she al- 
lowed her to recall her Ambassador and to declare war. 

"(3) By suggesting a localisation of the war she sought 
to create the appearance of mediating in the interests of 
peace, but that this proposal had no prospect of success 
must have been known to her from the history of diplomacy, 
and from the recent evidence of the Balkan crisis; that, 
as a matter of fact, it was known to her is clear from the 
confessions contained in the (German) White Book, 

"(4) She declined the proposal for a conference of the 
four Powers. 

"(5) She herself then advanced the proposal for direct 
discussions between Vienna and Petrograd, but, at the 
same time, she suffered Austria to decline to take part in 
these discussions, and, instead, to declare war against 
Serbia. 

"(6) She left unanswered the frequently repeated re- 

* The Evidence in the Case, pp. 243-5. 



THE RESPONSIBILITY 121 

quest of the other Powers that she should herself propose 
an alternative method of mediation in place of the proposal 
of a conference which she had declined. 

"(7) She left unanswered and undiscussed the various 
formulae for agreement proposed by Grey. 

"(8) In spite of all inquiries, she never said what Aus- 
tria wanted, but constantly restricted herself to saying 
what Austria did not want. 

"(10) She made to England a bid for neutrality, and 
thus announced her intention of making war at a time when 
the Entente Powers were still zealously labouring in the 
interests of peace. 

"(11) When at last negotiations on the Serbian Note 
were opened with a prospect of success in Petrograd 
between Austria and Russia, she upset these negotiations 
by her ultimata to France and Russia, and made war 
inevitable. 

"(12) In the ultimatum to Russia she demanded that 
demobilisation should also be carried out as against 
Austria, although Austria herself had mobilised the whole 
of her forces, 

"(13) In place of the counter-mobilisation which she 
had threatened to carry out, she at once declared war with- 
out any ground, first on Russia and then on France. 

"(14) As an afterthought she based these declarations 
of war on the fact that the Powers opposed to her had 
begun the war, whereas, on the contrary, the first acts of 
war were committed by Germany. 

"(15) She violated the neutrality of Belgium, and thus 
in addition brought about war with England. 

"These points in the indictment are proved, and justify 
the judgment : Germany is guilty, along with Austria, of 
having brought about the European war." ^ 

Mr. August Cohn, a German, but a naturalised British 
subject, writes that — 

"The charge that England, from mean and sordid 
^ r Accuse (translated by Alexander Gray), p. 240. 



122 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

motives, brought all this fearful misery, this terrible mis- 
fortune upon the world, is one of which we find it difficult 
to speak with moderation. We know but too well how, 
in spite of danger-signs, the British Government and 
people clung almost stubbornly to the belief that a great 
and intelligent nation would not allow its Government, 
however despotic, however unscrupulous, to lay Europe 
in ruins. That Germany's official apologists find it neces- 
sary to make that charge shows to what straits their Gov- 
ernment is driven in its efforts to deceive its own people, 
its allies, and neutrals. 

"And in August, 19 14, when England and Germany 
faced each other as enemies, where was the joy that at 
last the day had arrived when accounts could be settled 
with the hated rival? Where was the exultation that the 
longed-for opportunity had come to spring at the adver- 
sary's throat? Not here, not in England. Consternation, 
bewilderment at the reckless and wicked iniquity of a 
Government which hurled Europe, striving for peace, 
into the abyss of war; pity for a people which had given 
the control of its destiny into the hands of an ambitious 
and unscrupulous caste — those were the feelings and 
sentiments uppermost in the minds of the British people. 
Hatred of the German people? Even when news reached 
us of the outbursts against England, of the attacks on the 
Embassy at Berlin, Englishmen were amazed and pained, 
but willing to find excuses for the demonstration of feeling 
by a misguided populace. On the other hand, no one who 
was in London in those fateful days will forget the satis- 
faction and pride felt and expressed by Englishmen at 
the courtesy and respect shown by the British Government 
and public to the departing German Ambassador. There 
was deep anger and bitter resentment at the invasion of 
Belgium and the cynical repudiation of solemn inter- 
national treaties, but it was directed against the German 
Government, not against the German people. The very 
remarkable fact — and one which gives the lie to the wild 
charges of English hatred and jealousy — ^was the dis- 
tinction which even the great masses of the population 



THE RESPONSIBILITY 123 

endeavoured to draw between the guilt of the Prussian 
military oligarchy and the German people. Nobody will 
deny that this is a matter on which we are competent to 
speak/' ^ 



Dr. Hermann Rosemeier, until September 19 14 political 
editor of the Berlin Morgenpost, addressed from Switzer- 
land, in May 191 6, "to his fellow-countrymen in Germany 
and more especially to the German working-classes," ari 
Open Letter ^ containing the following passages : — 

". . . When Austria sent her infamous ultimatum to 
Servia on July 22,, 19 14, no one who saw through the whole 
affair ever doubted that it was the intention of the Cabinet 
in Vienna to force Servia into war.^ The Appeal to the 
German Social Democratic leaders, which appeared in the 
Vorwaerts of July 25, 19 14, called a spade a spade with 
refreshing plainness. It said — 

" 'The fields in the Balkans are still steaming from the 
blood of thousands of slain. The ruins of desolated cities 
and devastated villages are still smoking. Workless men, 
widowed women, and orphaned children are still wandering 

^ Some Aspects of the War as viewed by Naturalised British 
Subjects, pp. 19-20. One of Mr. Cohn's sons was recently killed 
fighting with the British in France. 

* Translated by Julian Grande, who states: "Of all the many 
publications issued since the war there is none which the German 
authorities have shown themselves more anxious to prevent from 
entering Germany than this Open Letter by Dr. Rosemeier. 
Nevertheless, I know that, despite all their vigilance, a considerable 
number of copies have reached not only the Germans in Germany, 
but the German soldiers in the trenches." 

'"Baron Wangenheim, German Ambassador in Constantinople, 
on July 15, 1914, eight days before the communication of the 
Austrian ultimatum to Serbia, informed Senator Garroni, the 
Italian Ambassador in Constantinople, that the Note would be so 
worded as to render war inevitable. This important fact was dis- 
closed by Signor Barzilai in his speech at Naples on September 
26, 1915." — H. W. Wilson in The National Review, January, 
1917. 



124. THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

half-starved about the country. The dogs of war let 
LOOSE BY AUSTRIAN IMPERIALISM are again ready to spread 
death and destruction over all Europe. 

" 'We may condemn the efforts of the "Greater Servia" 
Nationalists, but the light-hearted way in which the Austro- 
Hungarian Government has brought about a war calls for 
the sharpest protest, for never in the history of the world 
have such brutal demands been presented to an independ- 
ent State, and they can have but one result, that of di- 
rectly provoking war.' 

"The Vorzvaerts Appeal concluded that not a drop of 
German soldiers' blood ought to be shed in order to further 
the lust of power of the Austrian ruling classes. . . . 

"Of what avail were all the proposals of the Entente? 
Perhaps in Vienna they might have ended by yielding, 
when matters really began to look grave and the nice little 
punitive expedition to Servia threatened to become an 
extremely serious war with Russia. In Berlin, however, 
'they' were determined either to humiliate the Entente 
or to force them into a war, the absolutely absurd hope 
being cherished that England would stand aloof and watch 
France being brutally crushed and Belgian neutrality 
violated. The Government may have privately desired 
that the Entente Powers should humble themselves, and 
that a diplomatic victory might ensue without any blood- 
shed. This, however, is not quite certain, and there are 
very weighty reasons for believing that Bethmann-Hollweg 
did desire war with Russia, although not with England, 
and perhaps not with France either. As for the War 
Party proper — the Crown Prince, the War Office and the 
General Staff — they did wish for war, and particularly for 
a war with France, she being a Republican Democracy. 
Why else did the}^ work out such fine plans for finishing 
off France in a fortnight, or at most in four weeks, and for 
marching straight away through Belgium and being done 
with her? And why else were the magnificent 42-centimetre 
Morser guns in readiness, if war were not contemplated? 
Possibly the Kaiser may have opposed it, either from con- 
siderations of humanity, as we will do him the credit of 



THE RESPONSIBILITY 125 

supposing, or from prudence, because in a world-war many 
fine things may be destroyed, among them crowns. In any 
case his opposition was of no practical effect, and on the 
1st of August he declared war on Russia. . . . 

"Such is the true history of the events leading up to the 
war, reduced to their smallest compass. . . . People, who 
afterwards allowed no one to outdo them in uproarious 
advocacy of the war, then admitted to the writer in so many 
words that the war was brought about by Germany with 
the object of securing a predominant position in Europe. 
Among those who made this startling admission were the 
influential manager of the V assise he Zeitung, a man who 
had the entry at all hours to Ministerial offices; Georg 
Bernhard, the ex-Social Democrat; and Rudolf Cuno, the 
editor of the Berlin Morgenpost, the most widely read news- 
paper in Germany. 

"Yet these same persons, the Chancellor at their head, 
who know precisely what took place, are not ashamed to 
continue everlastingly telling the German people the fairy 
tale about Germany having been 'ruthlessly attacked.' Every 
expression of opinion about the causes of the war is care- 
fully suppressed should it contain the remotest hint that 
Germany herself is not so entirely innocent of the catas- 
trophe which has overwhelmed mankind. Lying and de- 
ceit are positively glorified as a moral duty. Character- 
istic of all this witches' Sabbath, all this crazy and criminal 
fraud, which Government, Parliament and Press have been 
and still are perpetrating on the German people, is the 
household word which Rudolf Cuno, already mentioned, 
editor of the Berlin Morgenpost, coined when speaking to 
the writer of this Open Letter: 'Only a scamp does not 
now help deceive the people with lies.' " 

A book entitled The Truth about Germany was printed in 
English at the beginning of the war and circulated in the 
United States, with the signatures of thirty-four well 
known men in Germany including Herr Albert Ballin and 
Prince von Biilow. It was re-edited, exposed and criti- 
cised under the title of Germany's Great Lie, by Mr. Doug- 



126 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

las Sladen, who quotes the following letter from the cor- 
respondent of the Daily Mail ^ at New York — 

'The Press of the United States to-day calmly and 
emphatically rejects the appeal for the sympathy of this 
nation made by the leading savants, authors, statesmen, 
financiers and industrial magnates of Germany in the form 
of a book giving the Kaiser's case under the title The 
Truth about Germany. 

"In dealing with this appeal the New York Times 
observes : *No voice or pen, however eloquent or gifted, 
can convince an impartial world of the justice of Ger- 
many's cause or change the rooted belief of right-thinking 
men that she is battling for ends that, if attained, would 
retard, rather than advance, the cause of civilisation, and 
make the peace, prosperity and happiness of the nations 
less secure. 

" 'These men of Germany ask us to give no heed to the 
lies of their enemies. In this land of enlightenment public 
opinion does not take form on anybody's lies. We take 
no count of perversions sent out from London or Paris. 
We have sought truth in its undefiled sources in the British 
White Paper and in the memorandum of the German For- 
eign Office, in the observed and acknowledged policies of 
the combatant nations, and in the utterances of their men 
of authority. The princes and professors who pay us the 
compliment of this appeal to our candid judgment will not 
impeach the testimony of their Foreign Office. 

" Tf there was suspension of judgment in the first weeks 
of the war, all doubt vanished and full conviction came 
when the official documents and records were_published. 
The American people there read of the untiring efforts of 
Sir Edward Grey to reach a peaceful adjustment through 
a conference of the Powers, of his appeals, to which 
France, Russia and Italy gave an Immediate assenting re- 
sponse, and which Germany alone met with evasion, ex- 
cuse, disfavour and refusal. 

" 'From the German memorandum they learn that the 

* Published in the Daily Mail, September 7, 1914. 



THE RESPONSIBILITY 127 

Kaiser's Government had from the first sustained and 
encouraged Austria in a policy of war, and had denied the 
rights of any other Power to stand between her and the 
Serbian objects of her wrath. It is wholly futile, it is an 
affront to our intelligence for these German suppliants 
for our favour to tell us now that Russia and England 
brought on the war, that Germany did not choose the path 
of blood, that the sword was forced into the hands of the 
German Emperor; nor can our favour or sympathy be 
won by misrepresenting the motives of England, France 
and Russia. 

" 'In the face of Sir Edward Grey's labours for peace, 
why tell us that England "encouraged this war" 
because she was determined to check the commercial 
growth of Germany? Why tell us that the war was 
*'provoked by Russia" because of an outrageous desire for 
revenge ? 

" 'These German advocates talk as though we had just 
arrived from the moon. We are unmoved by their picture 
of the Slav peril. Why is it that Germany fears the Slav ? 
England is not afraid; France has no fear; Italy, Belgium 
and Holland are all undisturbed. We would like to see a 
satisfactory answer to the question why, when all the rest 
of Europe is calm, Germany stands in terror of the 
Slav? 

" 'The authors of this book make a wretched defence of 
Germany's crime against international morality and her 
invasion of neutral Belgium. In our place, they say, the 
Government of the United States would not have acted 
differently. Speak for yourselves, gentlemen. Our recent 
repeal of a statute that was by a great part of our people 
deemed to be in conflict with one of our treaties speaks 
for us.' 

"The article refers to the disgust with which the in- 
habitants of the United States listen to the Kaiser's 
'blasphemous invocations to Divine favour upon his bloody 
enterprises,' and concludes : 'These gentlemen of Germany 
plead in vain. We can give them no help. To quote their 
own words in a truer sense than their own: The country 



128 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln places itself 
upon the side of a just cause and one worthy of humanity's 
blessing.' " 

We may add the following remarks by Herr Maximilien 
Harden/ one of Germany's most famous journalists, which 
appeared in his newspaper Die Zukunft: "Why not admit 
what is and must be the truth that everything was jointly 
prepared by Vierma and Berlin. We should be . . . un- 
worthy of the men who achieved Prussian predominance 
in Germany ... if fifty years after Koniggratz things 
could be otherwise." ^ 

And again: "Let us drop," he writes, "our miserable 
attempts to excuse Germany's action. Not against our 
will and as a nation taken by surprise did we hurl ourselves 
into this gigantic venture. We willed it; we had to will 
it. We do not stand before the judgment-seat of Europe; 
we acknowledge no such jurisdiction. 

"Our might shall create a new law in Europe ; it is Ger- 
many that strikes. When she has conquered new domains 
for her genius then the priesthoods of all the gods will 
praise the good war. . , . 

"Germany is not making this war to punish sinners or 
to free oppressed peoples, and then to rust in the conscious- 
ness of disinterested magnanimity. She sets out from the 
immovable conviction that her achievements entitle her 
to demand more elbow-room on earth and wider outlets 
for activity. . , . 

"Now Germany's hour has struck, and she must take her 
place as the leading Power. . . . 

"What territory could Germany take from France or 
Russia that would be of any particular use to the German 

*This is a nom de plume; his real name is Max Witkowski. 
He has not modified his convictions as to who is responsible 
for the war, but has now become a pacifist. Die Zukunft of 
May 27, 1916, begins with a lengthy review of the events immedi- 
ately preceding the war in which the aggressive attitude of the 
German Chancellor is contrasted with Sir Edward Grey's efforts 
to maintain the peace. The issue was confiscated by the German 
Government. 

"August I, 1914. 



THE RESPONSIBILITY 129 

people? No, what Germany is fighting for is not French, 
Polish, Ruthenian, Esthonian, Lithuanian provinces — nor 
is it milHards of indemnities. The object is to hoist the 
storm-flag of the Empire on the narrow channel that opens 
and closes the way to the Atlantic." ^ 

* November 1914; quoted in the Daily Chronicle, November 
18, 1914. 



KULTUR AND MORALITY 

Thus the "Great Day" had come when Germany, as 
she thought, was to enter upon the fulfilment of her destiny 
and establish her ascendancy over the whole of the earth. 
It had been hoped, as we have seen, that England would 
stand aside and wait her turn while France and Russia 
were being crushed. But, after all, "the intervention of 
England would not make the slightest difference!" as a 
German, personally known to the writer, remarked; and 
he added that "if God Himself came down from Heaven 
to fight for the Allies, He would not be able to save them 
from defeat." Moreover, God would assuredly fight on 
their side and not on the side of the Allies, Did not the 
Emperor say in his address to the armies proceeding to 
the East? "Remember that you are the Chosen People. 
The Spirit of the Lord has descended upon me, because 
I am the Emperor of the Germans. I am the Instrument 
of the All-High. I am His Sword and His Vicar on earth. 
Death and destruction to those who resist my will. Perish 
all the enemies of the German people. God requires their 
destruction, God Who by my mouth commands you to 
carry out His will." 

The whole nation was confident. On the 2nd of Sep- 
tember the German armies were to enter Paris, and the 
occupation of Petrograd — and, perhaps, London — would 
follow at no distant date. And they persuaded them- 
selves that the great German Kultur would spread itself 
over the globe. The Emperor had often impressed upon 
his people that they were the "salt of the earth." On 
leaving for Tangier in 1906 he said: "The good God 

130 



KULTUR AND MORALITY 131 

would not have taken so much trouble on behalf of our 
German Fatherland, if He did not reserve for us a great 
destiny. We are the salt of the earth . . . God created 
us that we might civilise the world." 

A foreign invasion has often proved in the end a blessing 
to the conquered. No one will deny that the Anglo-Saxon 
race owes much of its greatness to its admixture with the 
French; and impartial historians have recognised the 
healthy influence we have ourselves exerted over those 
races which have been incorporated in the British Empire. 
A person of cosmopolitan tendencies — and there are many 
such in this country as in others — might regard the over- 
throw of the constitution, under which he has hitherto 
been living, with indifference or with pleasure, according 
as it was supplanted by another equally good or better. 
Let us then consider what this German culture — or Kultur 
as they term it — is, and what is German morality. We 
shall then be able to judge for ourselves whether it is 
desirable that they should be imposed upon us and the 
rest of mankind. 

It is difficult to know what exactly we are intended to 
understand by Kultur. "Kultur," writes Herr Mann, in 
the Neue Rundschau of November 19 14, "is a spiritual 
organisation in the world which does not exclude 'bloody 
savagery' {sic). It is above morality, above reason, and 
above science." ^ 

Let us not confuse Kultur with what we understand by 
civilisation. "Civilisation, as understood by the bulk of 
mankind, is primarily a matter of conduct. It is an under- 
standing of honour and of integrity. It is a recognition 
of the rights of others. The Roman civilisation was not a 
mere matter of good roads, good bridges and good aque- 
ducts, though these things were built well. It did not rest 
on conquest or on commerce. 'What Rome gave and 
secured,' says Mr. Chamberlain, 'was a life morally worthy 
of man.' Germany's campaign in Belgium — and the more 
that is said in defence of this great wrong, the blacker does 
it appear — is an affront to honour, a death-blow to integ- 

^ Paroles Allemandes, 1915, pp. 34-5. 



182 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

rity, a denial of just rights. It is a triumphant exposition 
of brute force; of a life morally worthy of no man. It is 
a rejection of civilisation and of all that civilisation 
implies. It is an abrupt return to savage and elemental 
conditions." * 

To some Kultur appears to consist in experimenting in 
the various branches of science: "The German Kultur 
means pig-iron, Krupp's, ships, chemicals, music, discipline, 
military service and professors." ^ 

"The Kulturmensch is a person whose attainments in one 
direction are so considerable as to let him be of service to 
humanity in general and to the State in particular. A 
Kulturmensch might be a bacteriologist with the manners 
and appearance of a hog ; he might be an engineer who was 
perpetually drunk, or a philologist whose chief private 
characteristic was a tendency to unnatural vice." ^ 

Most German writers, however, seem to identify Kultur 
with a skilful direction of the affairs of State. By consider- 
ing, therefore, what, to the German mind, constitutes the 
highest form of statecraft, we shall arrive at an apprecia- 
tion of their Kultur^ This state-craft ackowledges no 
law and no morality, because the State is the embodiment 
of might; and might, as Haeckel and his followers say, is 
above right, and the State can commit no wrong, and is 
not even bound by its own engagements. "It is of the 
very essence of the State," writes Treitschke, who openly 
espouses and exaggerates the views of Machiavelli, "that 
it cannot recognize any force above its own , . , and every 
State, being sovereign, has an incontestable right to declare 
war when it pleases. Consequently every State is in a 
position to set aside contracts into which it has entered." ^ 

* A Textbook of the War for Americans, p. 84. 
" The War Week by Week, p. 139. 

' Ford Madox Hueffer, When Blood is their Argument. 

* "Ultimately the State is the transmitter of all culture." — 
Treitschke. 

""Our idea of the State has been that of an institution for 
the extension of personal liberty and freedom of action — the 
liberty of one man ending where that of another begins. Like- 
wise our conception of a State among other States has been that 



KULTUR AND MORALITY 133 

"The State has no judge superior to itself, and con- 
sequently will conclude all its treaties with that tacit 
reservation." ^ 

"Thus every State reserves to itself the right to judge of 
its treaty obligations for itself, and the historian cannot 
here step in with his purely conventional standards." ^ 

"The State should not altogether break with morality; 
as long as it is impolitic to be immoral, the moral law 
should be observed." ^ 

"Should civilisation erect its temples on mountains of 
corpses, over seas of tears and the groans of the dead? 
Yes, it must. If a people has a right to dominate, its power 
to conquer constitutes the highest moral power to which 
the conquered must bow. Woe to the conquered." * 

"The ideal statesman will pursue his purpose without 
allowing himself to be arrested by scruples in the choice 
of means and still less of persons." ^ 

"When one is ready and strong it is one's duty to rob 
the weak, and when one is ready it is one's duty to act at 
once." ® 

"The true philosopher," says Ronnberg, "does not 
question the point. . . . He obeys and approves. By so 
doing he merits this venerable name in doing that which 

its rights and activities may only extend so far as they do not 
transgress the just rights of another State. . . . 

"Not so in modern Germany. There, for the last half cen- 
tury, the final basis of human society and of those outward forms 
of civilisation which express a desire of all mankind to act to- 
gether for common purposes, have been insistently stated to be 
nothing but brutal strength. To the modern German, as exhibited 
in the authoritative writings which are in this volume, moral 
qualities, mental achievement, and spiritual insight serve no useful 
purpose in the life of a State, unless they can be used to bolster 
up the doctrine of blood and iron, and the monstrous theory that 
human society rests on a foundation of force." — Germany's War 
Mania, pp. 17-18. 

^Treitschke, Politik, vol. i. p. 103. 

"Ibid. ' Ibid., pp. 31-8. 

* Marshal von Haesseler, quoted in Paroles Allemandes, p. 124. 

"Politik, vol. i. p. 66. 

"This is what Bernhardi calls "die Pflicht zum Kriege." 
Deutschland und der Ndchste Krieg, ch. ii. 



134. THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

his functions require. Therefore so far as you are con- 
cerned believe what you consider to be true, but do not 
trouble the people with your doctrines. , . . You will thus 
act according to your duty as a citizen of the State . . . 
and you will remain, even when you teach what is against 
your convictions, an honest man." ^ 

"A State can commit no crime," says Professor Lasson; 
"the observation of treaties is not a question of right, but 
a question of interest." ^ 

"Between States there is but one right, the right of the 
strongest." ^ 

"Is Germany strong? She is. Then what are you 
talking about, Professors in spectacles and Theologians in 
slippers? Is there such a thing as right? Have noble 
ideas any value? What chimeras are you defending? One 
principle only counts, one alone which sums up and con- 
tains all the others — might." * 

The State being above morality may declare war on any 
pretext, or no pretext at all, whenever it deems it to its 
own advantage to do so, and may, and indeed should 
carry on that war without regard to any international 
engagements into which it had previously entered, or to 
the commonly accepted principles of humanity. 

"It is the idea which, based on the theory that war is a 
'biological necessity,' leads logically to the conclusion 
reached by Major-General von Disfurth that any act com- 
mitted in the carrying on of war is 'a brave act and fully 
justified.' " ^ 

"Any philanthropic sentiment in war is a pernicious 
error," ^ writes General Clausewitz ; and a manual issued 
by the German General Staff lays down that every method 
may be employed in war without which the object of the 
war cannot be attained. 

"Give no quarter; be as terrible as the Huns of Attila," 

^ Quoted in L'AUemagne et le Droit des Gens, p. 31. 
^ Das Kultur-Ideal und der Krieg, p. 868. ^ Ibid. 

*Maximilien Harden, Die Ziikunft, quoted in Paroles Alle- 
mandes, p. 68. 
^ A Textbook of the War for Americans, pp. 280-1. 
' Quoted in Paroles Allemandes, p. 92. 



KULTUR AND MORALITY 135 

said the Emperor William to his troops as they left for 
China in 1900/ 

War, they argue, should be "absolute." "The expres- 
sion 'civilised warfare' is a barely intelligible term." ^ 

"The moment a national war breaks out, terrorism be- 
comes a necessary military principle." ^ 

"Military necessity can attempt no distinction between 
public and private property. It has a right to take what 
it needs wherever and however it can." * 

"One cannot introduce a principle of moderation into 
the philosophy of war, without committing an absurdity. 
. . . It is, then, an erroneous tendency to seek to neglect 
the element of brutality in war merely because we dislike 
it." 5 

"In the good old time it often happened that a strong 
nation drove, by violent and destructive combats, another 
weaker nation from its home. To-day such violence no 
longer takes place ; to-day everything is carried on in peace 
in this miserable world, and those who have the upper 
hand are for peace. The little nations and the remnants 
(VolksspUtter) have discovered a new word, 'international 
law.' " « 

"International law must beware of paralysing military 
action by placing fetters on it." ''' 

"International law is in no way opposed to the exploi- 
tation of the crimes of third parties (assassination, incen- 
diarism, robbery, and the like) to the prejudice of the 
enemy. . . . The ugly and immoral aspect of such methods 
cannot affect the recognition of their lawfulness." ^ 

"All military effort requires that the combatant who 
makes this effort shall be entirely free from the shackles 

*But even Attila spared Troyes and its works of art. 

' General Julius von Hartmann in the Deutsche Rundschau, 
vol. xiii. 

^ Ibid., p. 4sS. * Ibid., p. 462. 

^ Clausewitz, Vom Kriege, vol. i. pp. 4-5. 

^Tannenberg, Gross-Deutschland, p. 74. 

^Von Hartmann in the Deutsche Rundschau, vol. xiii. pp. 119- 
24. 

^German War Book, translated by Professor Morgan, p. 86. 



136 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

of a constraining legality. . . . Violence and passion are 
the principal levers of every warlike act." ^ 

"When war has once broken out everything is at stake, 
for every war is a question of life or death. ... It would 
be weak to mince matters as well as cowardly to allow any 
feeling of pity to exist." ^ 

"The national State, which realises the highest form of 
the race, can be established only by the destruction of the 
other States^which destruction can only logically he brought 
about by violence." ^ 

"We have universally adopted the principle that the 
mass must atone for the fault of an individual. The village 
in which the inhabitants have fired on our troops, will be 
burnt to the ground. If the guilty is not discovered, some 
representatives will be chosen from among the population 
who will be executed by virtue of the martial law. , . . The 
innocent must pay the penalty with the guilty; if the 
latter cannot be determined, the innocent must suffer in 
their place, not because a crime has been committed by 
them, but in order that a crime be not again committed 
in the future."* 

"A stern and cruel method [that of placing civilians as 
a shield in front of the troops], which placed the life of 
peaceful inhabitants in serious danger, without there being 
any fault on their part. Consequently, every non-German 
opinion has denounced it as a breach of international law. 
. . . We must reply to this unfavourable criticism that 
this means was, in the circumstances given, the only one 
from which we might look for some result. ... It is justi- 
fied by the fact that it has been completely successful." ^ 

*Clausewitz, Vom Kriege, vol. i. p. 4. 

' Das Kultur-Ideal iind der Krieg, p. 56. ® Ihid., p. 66. 

* Walter Bloem in the Kolnische Zeitung, February 10, 1915. 

'"The German General Staff," Rules of Continental War. 

"When it is officially denied that German troops have used 
women and children as 'living shields' in warfare, we are not 
required to believe that Germans in general would think the 
practice indefensible. On the Belgian precedent it would be sound 
war policy if it could be shown to be useful." — J. M. Robertson, 
The German Idea of Peace Terms, p. 13. 



KULTUR AND MORALITY 137 

" 'Thou shall not kill, thou shalt not steal/ These words 
were called holy at one time. Before them one bent the 
knee and the head and took off one's shoes. But, I ask 
you, where could be found better brigands or better assas- 
sins than were these holy words? Is there not robbery and 
murder in life itself? . . . Oh, my brothers, break to pieces 
the ancient tablets." ^ 

"A war conducted with energy cannot be directed merely 
against the combatants of the enemy State and the posi- 
tions they occupy, but it will and must in like manner seek 
to destroy their whole intellectual and moral resources." ^ 

"A policy of sentiment is sottish ; dreams of humanity 
are stupid. . . , Policy is a matter of business. Justice 
and injustice are notions necessarily considered only in 
civil life. The German nation is always right because 
it is the German nation and comprises eighty-seven mil- 
lion inhabitants. Our fathers have left us much to ac- 
complish." ^ 

*'Ask the beech tree who has given it the right to raise 
its head higher than the pine and the fir tree, the birch or 
the palm ; summon it before the highest court over which 
preside old men with toothless jaws, and through its leaves 
will be heard a voice like that of the tempest crying out 
that 'my right is my might.' . . . We have a will to con- 
quer, and we must conquer. It is useless for diplomats in 
frock-coats and spectacles to argue that we are simple, hon- 
est people of a pacific temperament." * 

"Be strict with the enemy ; 

"Pay no attention to so-called international law ; 

"Have no pity for old men, women, or children." ^ 

"Stifle in you every human feeling," says Heinrich 
Vierordt in his "Hymn of Hate" ; "pierce the heart of 
every enemy with your bayonet; make no prisoners; 

* Nietzsche, Also Sprach Zarathustra. 

* German War Book. * Gross-DeutsMand. 

* Maximilien Harden, in Die Zukunft. 

'From a book published in 1915, entitled The German 
Soldier's Ten Commandments of Iron, by Lieutenant Joachim 
von der Goltz, quoted in the Swiss Press of the 8th July of that 
year. 



138 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

render them for ever silent; transform the neighbouring 
countries into deserts . . . carry out the judgment of 
God . . . and afterwards you will stand on the ruins of 
the world, cured for all time of your ancient folly, of your 
love of foreigners." 

To profess these principles — that might is above right, 
and the State above morality; that war is a necessary and 
a healthy occupation, and that we should wage it at every 
opportunity and with all the violence and ruthlessness of 
which our animal nature is capable — is to advocate a 
return to the primaeval condition of mankind when the 
distinction between right and wrong was undeveloped, 
and the weaker had to give way to the stronger, how- 
ever just his cause ; in one word to turn ourselves, openly 
and consciously, into soulless Frankenstein monsters, 
after having striven all these centuries towards a higher 
ideal; for their teaching is nothing less than this.* It 
is a reasoned and systematic adoption of the lower animal 
instincts, the enthronement of all that is evil and bestial in 
human nature.^ 

It is based, as they pretend, on the laws of evolution, 
but is, on the contrary, subversive of those laws. If brute 
force is still the principal factor in the development of the 
human race, then we have reached no higher level than our 
ancestors of the Stone Age.^ 

^ "Europe has submitted before to barbarian invasions, but what 
she has never seen before is barbarism elevated to a dogma, taught 
by professors, advocated by the highest intellects, supported by 
science." — Kaiser, Krupp and Ktiltiir, p. Ii6. 

^ "It is no exaggeration to say that this German philosophy, 
taken as a whole, is an attempt to overthrow all principles of 
morality as recognised from the days of antiquity by both Pa- 
gans and Christians; it is a return — at the same time conscious 
and unconscious — to the cult of the god Tott or Tuiston, the 
god of Might, Unser Gott, a cult which lay dominant at the 
bottom of the German soul." — Gabriel Hanotaux in the Revue 
Hehdomadaire of February 6, 191 5. 

""Every student of nature recognises and deplores the cruelty 
inseparable from the struggle for existence underlying the great 
biological law of the survival of the fittest. 

"But it has remained for these spokesmen of Germany to 



KULTUR AND MORALITY 139 

It makes no difference that these principles are laid 
down with reference in particular to the State; for if 
the State recognises no law but that of necessity, so will 
each individual member of that State consider himself 
"above morality" in all his actions, and all the more so 
when, as under the German system, every subject is ex- 
pected to regard his rulers as infallible and practically to 
merge his individuality in the State. 

It might have been thought, or at least hoped, that these 
theories were nothing more than the ravings of irrespon- 
sible pedants and atheists — and, indeed, one of their fore- 
most exponents, Nietzsche, passed the last ten years of his 
life under restraint. But unfortunately we have seen each 
one of their savage doctrines put into practice over and 
over again during more than thirty months, until the very 
name of Germany has become, and must remain, a by-word 
for infamy and barbarity. 

On the 26th of June, 1831, a treaty was signed by the 
representatives of the five Great Powers of Europe, in- 
cluding Prussia^ guaranteeing the independence and neu- 
trality of the Kingdom of Belgium. Article 5 of this 
treaty is worded as follows : "Belgium shall form a 
perpetually neutral State. . . . The five Powers . . . 
guarantee to-day this perpetual neutrality as also the 
integrity and inviolability of its territory." This treaty 
was renewed between the same Powers on the 19th of 
April, 1839. 

By Article 2 of the fifth Convention of the Hague, 
signed on the 18th of October, 1907, by the representatives 
of forty-four States, including Germany, "belligerents are 

apply to civilised nations, without essential change or modifi- 
cation, eliminating all considerations of morality, of altruism, 
of kindliness to the weak or helpless, of everything in fact which 
serves to distinguish us from our fellow animals. There is little 
enough at the best, but Bernhardi's 'biological necessity' of war, 
like the 'necessity' — ^to overrun Belgium — of the German Chan- 
cellor, is simply a barefaced return to the ethics of the tiger." — 
A Textbook of the War for Americans, p. 32. 



140 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

forbidden to move across the territory of a neutral Power 
troops and convoys." By Article lo of that Convention, 
the fact of a neutral Power repelling, even by force, attacks 
on its neutrality cannot be considered as a hostile act. 

At the meeting of the Budget Committee of the "Reich- 
stag" of April 29, 1 91 3, Herr von Jagow, the German 
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, declared that: 
"Belgian neutrality is provided for by international con- 
ventions, and Germany is determined to respect these 
conventions." On the same occasion, Herr von Heeringen, 
Minister of War, said that: "Germany will not lose sight 
of the circumstance that the neutrality of Belgium is guar- 
anteed by international treaty." ^ 

It is difficult to believe that, even at the time at which 
they were made, there was any sincerity in these minis- 
terial declarations, in view of the statement with reference 
to Belgium and Holland contained in the German secret 
report quoted above. It will be well to repeat it: "We 

^ Professor Morgan has called attention to the fact that 
"the absolute inviolability of Belgium, under all circum- 
stances and without exception, has been laid down in the 
leading German textbook on International Law, which de- 
clares that such treaties are the great 'landmarks of progress' 
in the formation of a European polity, and that the guarantors 
must step in, whether invited or uninvited, to vindicate them." 
He quotes Holtzendorff (Handbuch des Volkerrechts, III., pp. 93, 
108, 109), as saying that "nothing could make the situation 
of Europe more insecure than an egotistical repudiation by the 
great States of these duties of international fellowship." Ger- 
man Atrocities, p. 5. 

The German jurist, Bluntschli, Professor at the University 
of Heidelberg, also taught that a neutral State was in duty 
bound to take up arms to resist the invasion of its country 
by a belligerent, and that it was not an act of war to do so. 
"The act of defending neutral territory," he writes, "by 
arms or of repulsing an attack, does not annul its neutrality; it 
confirms it." — See I'Allemagne et le Droit des Gens, p. 120. 

"Treaties made for peace conditions are obviously liable to 
be broken in war, but a treaty made with special reference to 
war belongs to that class of obligations whose infringement 
is like cheating at cards. The offender gets no second chance." 
— Joseph C. Fraley (of Philadelphia) in a brochure entitled How 
and Why a War Lord Wages War, 



KULTUR AND MORALITY 141 

must be strong in order to annihilate at one powerful 
sweep our enemies in the East and West, but in the next 
European war it will also be necessary that the small 
States shall be forced to follow us or be subdued. In cer- 
tain conditions their armies and their fortified places can 
be rapidly conquered or neutralised; this will probably be 
the case with Belgium and Holland." Moreover, for years 
past, Germany had been building strategic railways on the 
Belgian frontier, and her military writers had been discuss- 
ing the advisabiity of entering France through Belgian ter- 
ritory in the event of war. 

"France," wrote General von Bernhardi, in 191 1, "must 
be so crushed as never to be able to rise again and 
interfere with us. This result must be secured at any 
cost, even at the cost of a European war. The neu- 
trality of Belgium will not stop us." ^ The Deutsche Kriegs- 
Zeitung, or German War Journal, wrote on the 22nd of 
September, 1914: "The plan for the invasion of France 
was thoroughly thought out a long time ago. It was nec- 
essary for its success that it should take place in the north 
hy way of Belgium.'' ^ 

Already in 1906, in consequence of the growing suspicion 
that Germany would, sooner or later, violate the neutrality 
of Belgium, a conference had taken place between the 
British Military Attache at Brussels and the Chief of 
the Belgian War Office Staff as to the assistance which 
England would be able to give to Belgium in the event 
of a German invasion.^ 

^ Vom heutigen Kriege (vol. i. p. 434), quoted by Davignon in 
La Belgique et I'Allemagne (English translation), p. 17. 

^Ihid. 

*The German Government has attempted, by tampering 
with documents found in the Belgian archives at Brussels, to 
convince the credulous that Belgium had violated her own neu- 
trality by agreeing to the landing of British troops in case of 
wdiX, but the forgery has been amply exposed. The following 
account of the proceedings of the German Government in the 
matter appeared in an article in the National Review, referred 
to above: — 
, "The N orddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, on October 13 and 



142 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

But it is, after all, immaterial what were their previous 
intentions. It is enough that when war had been decided 
upon the German armies "had to advance into France," 
as Herr Bethmann-Hollweg said to the British Ambas- 
sador,^ "by the quickest and easiest way so as to be able 
to get well ahead with their operations and endeavour to 
strike some decisive blow as soon as possible. It was a 
matter of life and death for them, as if they had gone 
by the more southern route, they could not have hoped, 
in view of the paucity of roads and of the strength of the 
fortresses, to have got through without formidable opposi- 
tion, entailing great loss of time." Was not might above 
right, at least where Germany was concerned, and was 
it not an admitted principle that in war all expedients 

November 24, 1915, published documents seized by the Ger- 
mans in the Belgian archives, relating to armed assistance 
by Great Britain if Belgium v^ere attacked, and at the same 
time the German Government published a Dutch edition of these 
documents, accompanied by a photograph of the text. The pho- 
tograph contained a passage on the margin, 'The entry of the 
English into Belgium would only take place on the violation 
of our neutrality by Germany,' which was omitted in the Dutch 
translation and in the German newspaper. A second passage was 
deliberately altered. It ran in the photograph : 'Our conversation 
was quite confidential.' The German Government altered this into 
'our convention was quite confidential,' making it appear that there 
was a secret treaty between Great Britain and Belgium." 

"What wonder that, knowing themselves forsworn, the Ger- 
mans should strive to cast the guilt of their perfidy on Belgium's 
shoulders ! What wonder that, knowing themselves to be un- 
principled aggressors, they should have the hardihood to say that 
Belgium plotted against the peace of Europe ! There is no hatred 
so deep as that which we bear to the man we have wronged. 
There is no sight so bitter to a nation's eyes as the unstained 
honour of another nation it has dishonourably despoiled. As 
long as history is taught, the tale of Germany's broken word 
and Belgium's brave resistance will be told to the world. As 
long as men stay men, they will loathe the oppressor and revere 
the indomitable courage of the oppressed. As long as truth 
stays truth, the blot on Germany's escutcheon will remain un- 
efifaced and uneffaceable." — A Textbook of the War for Amer- 
icans, pp. 84-5. 

*See p. no. 



KULTUR AND MORALITY 143 

were permissible by which victory would be ensured! 
As the Chancellor himself stated a few days later in the 
Reichstag, "necessity knows no law." "Our troops," 
he went on to say, "have occupied Luxemburg, perhaps 
they have already entered Belgian territory. Gentlemen, 
this is in contradiction to the rules of international law. 
. . . The wrong — I speak openly — the wrong that we now 
do we will try to make good again as soon as our military 
ends have been reached." 

The violation of the neutrality of the Grand Duchy of 
Luxemburg, which was also guaranteed by the Powers, 
including Germany and Austria, by the Treaty of May i8, 
1867, would also facilitate the invasion of France, and 
German troops accordingly passed the frontier on the 2nd 
of August.^ 

*The Figaro of November 24, 191 5, published the following 
story in a letter from M. Fleury Bavarin, a former Deputy of 
the French Senate: "The Kaiser repeats that he did not 
wish for war; that it was forced upon him, and that Germany 
has merely defended herself. No one outside Germany is 
deceived by this audacious lie. . . . But I would beg you to give 
publicity to a little matter of a very convincing nature which 
has been brought to my knowledge by a person residing in Lux- 
emburg, who has recently arrived in Paris. At the beginning, 
or towards the middle of June 1914, there arrived at a German 
hotel in the capital of the Grand Duchy twenty tourists who 
were occupied for several weeks in making themselves acquainted 
with every corner of the town, visiting both the French and the 
Belgian frontiers. They did not at the time attract much atten- 
tion, but when the war broke out in August, and the Duchy 
was entered by German troops, the tourists were seen to leave 
the hotel, dressed no longer as civilians, but in military uniform, 
and conduct the invaders to the various posts, where guards were 
subsequently placed." 



VI 



HOW GERMANY WAGES WAR: OFFICIAL REPORTS ON 

ATROCITIES COMMITTED BY THE GERMAN AND 

AUSTRIAN TROOPS IN EUROPE 

But if, in her preparations for the conquest of Europe, 
Germany has regarded the solemn treaties, into which she 
entered, as so many scraps of paper, the methods which 
she has employed in her attempt to bring it about, surpass 
in their horror anything which has hitherto been recorded 
in history. There is not the least exaggeration in this 
statement. The atrocities which have been committed 
in the past years by the officers and men alike of her 
armies in Belgium, France, Russia and Serbia and of 
her navy on the sea, have been already described in hun- 
dreds of volumes and many thousands of newspapers, 
in all the principal languages of the world; but they are 
of so shocking a nature that many people lack the nerve 
to read them, while others confess their inability to realise 
that in Europe of the twentieth century there should be 
found men, and not only men but a nation, capable of 
perpetrating such crimes. They prefer to imagine for 
the sake of humanity that the incidents have not been 
correctly related. But not only are a vast number of the 
crimes reported based on unimpeachable evidence, often 
on the statements contained in the letters and diaries of 
Germans who have witnessed them or themselves partici- 
pated in them, but they are justified — if such a word can 
be used in this connection — by the orders issued by com- 
manders and other responsible persons. 

"The armies of modern days being recruited indis- 
criminately from all classes of the nation, it is not 
astonishing that there should be certain degenerates among 

144 



HOW GERMANY WAGES WAR 145 

them capable under exceptional circumstances of per- 
forming criminal acts. It would be unjust to impute to 
the whole of a nation the horror of certain isolated crimes. 
There have been examples of such crimes in every war, 
and the nations taking part therein are not dishonoured 
by tlie excesses of a few individuals or by small groups 
of their soldiers, any more than they are in time of peace 
by the scandal of a crime committed in their midst. . . . 
But it is a very different matter when, putting aside in- 
dividual crimes, we have to deal with wholesale executions 
or excessive severity shown with regard to persons or their 
property by the express command of the military authori- 
ties. In this case, so far from constituting exceptional 
crimes and contraventions against an established discipline, 
these acts are to be attributed to the form of discipline 
itself and consequently to the system of command and the 
social and moral ensemble of which this discipline is the 
expression, the instrument and the support." ^ 

"It is with my approval," said General von Biilow in 
a proclamation posted at Liege on the 22nd of August, 
1 9 14, "that the Commander-in-Chief has caused the whole 
district to be burnt, and that about two hundred persons 
have been shot." 

The following is an extract from a proclamation to the 
communal authorities of the town of Liege — 

August 22, 1914. 
"The inhabitants of the town of Andenne, after having 
protested their peaceful intentions, made a treacherous sur- 
prise attack on our troops. 

"It was with my consent that the General had the whole 
place burnt down and about 100 people shot. 

"I bring this fact to the knowledge of the town of 
Liege, so that its inhabitants may know the fate with 
which they are threatened, if they take up a similar 
attitude. 

"The General Commanding-in-Chief, 

"von Bulow/' 
^ UAllemagne et le Droit des Gens, p. 124. 



146 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

And again at Namur on August 25: ''All the streets 
will be occupied by a German guard who will take six 
hostages in each street. If any disorder takes place in 
the street the hostages will be shot. 

"The Commandant of the City, 

"von Bulow." 



"With a view to ensure the safety of our troops and 
the tranquillity of the population of Rheims, the persons, 
whose names are mentioned, have been seized as hostages 
by the Commander of the German Army. These hostages 
will be shot on the slightest disorder occurring. On the 
other hand, if the town remains absolutely calm and 
tranquil, the hostages and inhabitants will be placed under 
the protection of the German Army. 

"The General in Command. 

"Rheims, September 12, 1916." 

"In future the districts situated near the spot where 
railway or telegraph lines have been destroyed will be 
punished without mercy (it makes no difference whether 
they are guilty or not). For this purpose, hostages have 
been seized in all the districts situated near the railways 
threatened with any attempt of this nature; and immedi- 
ately any attempt is made to destroy the railway and tele- 
graphic lines, they will be shot. 

"The Governor, 

"VON DER GOLTZ. 
"Brussels, October 5, 1914." 

"The town of Wavre will be burnt and destroyed with- 
out regard to anybody," wrote General von Vieber on 
the 27th of August to the Burgomaster of that town, "if 
a contribution of 3,000,000 francs is not paid in good time. 
The innocent will suffer with the guilty." 

In a placard posted at Hasselt, August 17, it was de- 
clared that if inhabitants fired upon the soldiers of the 



HOW GERMANY WAGES WAR l^T 

German army, a third of the male population would be 
put to death. 

An order by General Stenger, commander of the 58th 
Brigade, declares that — 

"From to-day no more prisoners will be taken. All the 
prisoners will be put to death. 

"The wounded, whether armed or unarmed, will be put 
to death. 

"Prisoners, even when in large bodies, will be put to 
death. No living man must remain behind us." 

Extract from Brigade Orders, August 21, 1914, Mul- 
hausen — 

"All Frenchmen, whether wounded or not, who fall 
into our hands, are to be killed. No prisoners are to be 
taken." 

Proclamation posted at Grivegnee, September 8, 19 14, 
by Major Dieckmann — ■ 

"Whoever does not immediately obey the order 'hold 
up arms' renders himself guilty (sic) of death (se rend 
coupable de la peine de mort) ." 

''Notice 

"All the inmates of the house, with the exception of 
children under fourteen years and their mothers and aged 
persons, must be ready to be transported within an hour 
and a half. 

"An officer will decide definitely what persons will be 
conducted to the concentration camps. For this purpose, 
all the inmates of the house are to assemble in front 
of it; in case of bad weather, they may remain in the 
passage. The door of the house must remain open. 
All complaints will be useless. No inmate of the house, 
including even those who will not be transported, will be 
permitted to quit the house before eight o'clock (German 
time). 



148 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

"Each person will be entitled to thirty kilograms of lug- 
gage; if there is any excess the whole of the luggage of 
the person, to whom it belongs, will be refused without dis- 
tinction. The luggage must be put together separately for 
each person and a legible address firmly attached to it. 
The address must contain the Christian and surname and 
the number of the identity card. 

"It is essential in the interests of the persons concerned 
that they should provide themselves with utensils for eat- 
ing and drinking as well as a woollen coverlet, good boots 
and linen. Each person must carry on him his identity 
card. Any person attempting to evade the transportation 
will be punished without mercy. 

"Etappen-Kommandantur. 
"Lille, April, ipi6" 

The men who compose the German and Austrian armies 
have tortured and mutilated and done to death in all 
manner of ways the innocent inhabitants of the towns and 
villages through which they have passed, hanging or shoot- 
ing them down, men, women and children, singly or in 
groups, or clubbing them with the butt-end of their rifles, 
or hewing them to pieces with their axes, or spearing them 
with bayonets, or burning them in their houses.^ 

*At Sempst, Louvain, Liege and Dinant, families trying 
to escape from their burning houses were shot or thrust back 
into the fire. 

The manner in which the Austrians in Serbia put their 
victims to death were very varied according to Professor 
Reiss. "Very often," he writes, "the victims were muti- 
lated before or after death. The following methods of killing 
and mutilation I have established by evidence. The victims 
were shot, killed by the bayonet, their throats cut with knives, 
they were violated and then killed, stoned to death, hanged, 
beaten to death with the butt-end of rifles or with sticks, 
disembowelled, burnt alive, or their legs or arms were cut or 
torn off, their ears or noses cut off, their eyes put out, their 
breasts cut off, their skin cut in strips, or the flesh torn from 
the bone. Lastly, a little girl of ten months was thrown to the 
pigs." 



HOW GERMANY WAGES WAR 149 

They have bombarded and desecrated churches, and 
stolen the sacred vessels from them. They have reduced 
whole villages and large parts of towns to dust, destroying 
historical edifices and works of art of incalculable value, 
and have had themselves photographed among the ruins ; ^ 
or, where there were no public buildings to destroy, no 
banks to plunder or houses to pillage, they have devastated 
the country. An eyewitness speaks of the country 
which they are now abandoning in their retreat in the 
west as "one indescribable scene of desolation, rapine 
and wanton brutality." "At Bray St. Christophe," 
says another eyewitness, "not content with blowing 
the church of the cemetery to atoms, the departing 
invaders tore its covering stones from some of the tombs 
and destroyed the coffins, presumably for the metal they 
contained." 

They have outraged women and girls by thousands, 
often murdering them afterwards. In the town of Dinant 
alone they massacred more than six hundred persons in 
one month.2 They have on numerous occasions, and with 
despicable cowardice, placed women and children as a 
screen between themselves and their enemies' rifles. They 
have revelled in cruelty ; even dumb animals have been the 
victims of their barbarity.^ 

Their prisoners have, in many cases, fared no better at 

* "Postcards illustrating the ruin and destruction which they 
have brought about, and the tortures they have inflicted upon the 
innocent inhabitants have been published and distributed, show- 
ing that, so far from there being any shame on account of the 
excesses committed by the soldiers, they gloried in them." — 
L'Alleinagne et le Droit des Gens, p. 221. 

*In August, 1914. A complete list of their names is given 
in the Belgian Official Reports, vol. ii. Annex 3. On pp. 106 
seq. of the same Reports (English translation) a list is given 
of 44 men between 65 and 80, of 57 women and girls, and of 
50 children, boys and little girls, some only a few months old, 
butchered by German troops at that town. In the province of 
Namur, they massacred nearly 2000 persons. 

* Belgian Official Reports on The Violation of the Rights of 
Nations and the Laws and Customs of War, ii. 9. 



150 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

their hands than the inhabitants of the invaded towns. 
Numbers have been shot, or battered or kicked to death 
where they fell; others, carried to Germany have had to 
endure the vilest treatment, both on their way there and 
during their internment. And not only prisoners of war, 
but vast numbers of the civil population of the invaded 
towns are now being torn away from their families and 
deported to Germany, where they will be forced to labour 
for their oppressors like gangs of slaves.^ 

From the air and from the sea they have hurled their 
bombs on women and children under the pretence that 

* "Parties of soldiers enter by force these peaceful homes 
and tear youths from their parents, the husband from his 
wife, and the father from his children. They stop with 
bayonets the door through which wives and mothers wish 
to pass in order to say a final farewell to those who are going 
away. 

"The Germans arrange their captives in groups of forty 
and fifty and force them into railway trucks. As soon as 
the train is full the officer in charge gives the signal for its 
departure. And so thousands of Belgians are reduced to 
slavery. They do not know whither they are going." — Pro- 
test issued by Cardinal Mercier in the name of all the Bishops 
of Belgium; quoted in the Pall Mall Gazette, November 14, 
1916. 

"In a note issued July 25, 1916, the French Government 
challenged Germany to permit neutral Powers to inquire into 
the seizure of non-combatants at Lille, Roubaix and Tourcoing, 
in April 1916. The facts were that 22,000 girls over twenty, 
women and men in these French towns, then in enemy occu- 
pation, were seized by German soldiers from regiments defeated 
at Verdun, and carried off in droves, altogether pell-mell. 
The men were to be employed in forced labour on the land, 
on roads and in the manufacture of munitions. The women 
were to cook and wash for the soldiers and to replace the 
officers' orderlies. Evidence was produced showing that 
young women had been forced to work for the enemy under 
fire, had been brutally ill-used, had been miserably fed, and 
in some cases had been flogged. The German Govern- 
ment refused to allow any neutral State to inquire into the 
facts. See Les Allemands a Lille, French official publica- 
tion." — H. W. Wilson, in the National Review, January, 
1917. 



HOW GERMANY WAGES WAR 151 

they were bombarding fortified towns. ^ They have strewn 

*And yet their newspapers avow that the object of the Zeppe- 
lin raids is to terrify and wreak vengeance on the non-combatant 
citizens of London. 

"Thousands bleed daily in the shell-fire on the Somme, 
and the crews of our airships do not ask a softer fate. For 
all, down to the last man, know that they strike England most 
effectively to the heart, and that peace is brought most speedily 
nearer when the full-fed shopkeepers on the Thames no longer 
feel safe in their own houses, and when pale fear chases the blood 
from their faces. The voice of compassion must be silent 
against brutal England, which desires to root out our whole race 
from the earth." — Leipziger Neueste Nachrichten, September 26, 
1916. 

"England an island no longer ! The City of London, the 
heart which pumps the life-blood into the arteries of the brutal 
huckster nation, has been sown with bombs by German air- 
ships, whose brave pilots had the satisfaction of seeing 
the dislocated fragments of docks, banks and numerous other 
buildings rise up to the dark skies in lurid tongues of flame. 
At last the long-yearned-for punishment has fallen on England, 
on this people of liars and hypocrites, the punishment for the 
overflowing measure of sins in ages past. Not blind hatred is 
it, nor raging anger, that inspires our airship heroes, but 
a solemn, a religious awe at being the chosen instruments of 
the Divine wrath; and in that moment that they saw London 
going up in smoke and lire they lived through a thousand lives 
of an immeasurable joy which all who remain at home must envy 
them."— Ibid. 

The Berlin- Anzeiger has published a pretended photograph of 
the "devastation" caused by the raid of September 23, 191 5, in 
Regent Street, "the famous shopping thoroughfare of London, 
which is mostly in ruins in consequence of our air-raids !" 

"In the Zeppelin raids on Great Britain bombs were con- 
sistently dropped on small towns and residential districts of 
large towns. Military works were avoided; in general the 
German airships went nowhere near munition works. Full 
statements by neutrals have been published on this head. 
Down to September 4, 1916, 352 persons had been killed and 
799 injured — almost all non-combatants and many, of them 
women and children — in German air-raids. The writer is able 
to say, after personally examining the bomb-discharging 
apparatus in L33, that it was of such a nature as to make hit- 
ting any target out of the question at a height of 5000 feet or 
more, at which these airships attack." — The National Review, 
January, 191 7. 



152 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAK 

mines in the open sea.^ They have torpedoed passenger 
and hospital ships, laughing at their victims as they 
struggled in the water,^ or leaving them to perish in their 
boats of cold and hunger. Nor are any means by which 
they can bring them to their fate too foul in their eyes.^ 

"On December i6, 1914, the German battle cruisers, under 
Admiral Hipper shelled Whitby, Scarborough, and the Hartle- 
pools, killing 150 non-combatants, many of whom were women 
and children, and wounding over 400. No notice was given; 
no naval operations were undertaken; the fire was directed 
at houses and residential districts. On April 25, 1916, a 
similar purposeless attack was made on Lowestoft and Yar- 
mouth, but on this occasion only very trifling loss was inflicted." 
—Ibid. 

"The attack or bombardment by any means whatever of un- 
defended towns, villages, dwellings or buildings," is forbidden by 
Article 25 of the Hague Convention of 1907. 

^ "This question of laying mines outside territorial waters 
was raised at the Second Hague Conference by the British 
Government when the German representative. Baron Marschall 
von Bieberstein, said in answer to a British proposal to forbid 
mines as inhuman and dangerous to neutrals: 'The officers 
of the German navy, I say it loudly, will always fulfil in the 
strictest fashion the duties which the unwritten law of humanity 
and of civilisation lays on them.' " — Protocols of the Second 
Peace Conference, p. 55; quoted in the National Review, 
January, 191 7. 

*As in the case of the Falaha. It was stated, on the 19th 
of April, 1916, by the President of the Board of Trade, that 
up to that date 13,117 non-combatants had lost their lives from 
ships torpedoed by German submarines. "This," writes the Matin 
(June 3, 1916), "is another account to be added to those which 
the Allies will have to settle with this abominable nation and 
with its accomplices. When the day of reckoning comes, 
we must remember not only the peaceable peasants and bourgeois 
murdered or burnt alive, but the awful agony of the women and 
children who perished in the waves, while the brutal corsair looked 
on and jeered." 

*A Dutchman on his return from a sea-voyage informed 
the Telegraaf that a Dutch ship, while in the Bay of 
Biscay, received the signal "S.O.S." On proceeding to the 
spot from which the signal came it found there a German sub- 
marine which was not in the least in distress, and the captain of 
which expressed great disappointment that the Dutch ship, which 
answered the signal, was not a British one. 



HOW GERMANY WAGES WAR 153 

They have fired on hospitals and ambulances.^ They 
have poisoned the wells which supplied our East African 
troops with drinking water. It can hardly add to their 
infamy, if it be true, as reported, that they have used 
explosive bullets,^ that they have attempted to infect the 
population of Bucharest with the germs of mortal disease,^ 

* Evidence was given before Lord Bryce's Committee showing 
"*^at the enemy shelled buildings on which the Red Cross Flag 
was conspicuously flying, even when so close to them that there 
could be no difficulty in making out the flag; that he fired on 
stretcher-bearers and ambulances; and that in one case a Red 
Cross depot was shelled on most days in the week." 

^ In a French work entitled Comment VAllemagne fait la Guerre, 
there is given a photographic reproduction of an order, signed 
by the General in command of the 8th German Army Corps, for- 
bidding the further use of explosive (dum-dum) bullets. — Paroles 
Allemandes, pp. ii8, 130. 

^ "The analysis made by Dr. Cantacerzene of the chocolates 
and other sweets dropped by the Bulgaro-German aviators in the 
course of their flights over the country, has proved conclusively that 
these bonbons contained the microbes of typhus and other maladies. 
The Roumanian Government will send copies of the analysts' report 
and samples of the poisoned sweets to the Governments of the neu- 
tral countries." — The Near East, November 24, 1916. 

Documents have already been issued by the Roumanian 
Government showing that cases buried in the ground of the 
German Legation at Bucharest contained, amongst other 
things, explosives of a high order and cultures of anthrax and 
glanders bacilli. Inside the box, which contained the latter 
was a type-written note to the following effect : "Herewith four 
tubes for horses and four for horned cattle. Each tube is suffi- 
cient for 200 head. If possible administer direct through the 
animal's mouth; if not, in its fodder. Should be obliged for a 
little report on success. If there should be good news to report, 
Herr K.'s presence here for a day desirable." 

Copies of the documentary evidence have been forwarded 
by the Roumanian Minister for Foreign Affairs to the neutral 
and allied Governments with a Note in which he says: "It 
has been proved, in a manner that is unfortunately beyond 
dispute, that before our declaration of war against Aus- 
tria-Hungary, that is to say, at a period when the Roumanian 
Government was observing a strict neutrality and main- 
taining normal relations with the German Empire, the staff 
of the Imperial Legation violated all the rules of neutrality 
and all the duties of diplomatic representatives by introducing 



154* THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

or blown up Norwegian ships with their crews and pas- 
sengers by means of bombs and infernal machines placed 
on them through the agency of their diplomatic representa- 
tives at Christiania, 

There is no convention of the Hague which they have 
not violated. 

The instances of their savage brutality given below form 
but an infinitesimal part of the abominable deeds which 
have been recorded against them in official reports. 

"Namur was entered August 24. The troops signal- 
ised their entry by firing on a crowd of 150 unarmed, 
unresisting civilians, only ten of whom escaped. . . . As 
the inhabitants fled from the burning houses they were 
shot by the German troops." 

"At Tamines a witness describes how he saw the public 
square littered with corpses, and after a search found the 
bodies of his wife and child, a little girl of seven." 

"At Haecht several children were murdered. One of 
two or three years old was found nailed to the door of a 
farmhouse by its hands and feet — a crime which seems 

secretly into the Roumanian capital considerable quantities of an 
extremely powerful explosive, and bacillus-cultures which were 
intended for the infection of domestic animals, and were in con- 
sequence likely to produce terrible murrains, as well as maladies 
transmissible to human beings. 

"There is no possible doubt as to the manner in which the 
substances in question must have been introduced into Rou- 
manian territory. The extremely rigorous measures of frontier 
police which were taken by the Roumanian Government from 
the beginning of the European War and were continually 
strengthened at later dates, are ample proof in themselves that 
these explosives and bacillus-cultures were despatched through 
diplomatic channels — as is corroborated by the seal of the 
German Consulate at Brasso, placed upon the box of microbe- 
cultures — and that they can only have reached the Imperial Lega- 
tion through the agency of diplomatic couriers, protected by the 
special inmiunities attached to their ofifice. The names of the 
successive consignees of the package of phials also make it pos- 
sible to ascertain the time-limits within which the said cultures 
were imported into Roumanian territory." 



HOW GERMANY WAGES WAR 155 

almost incredible, but the evidence for which we feel bound 
to accept. In the garden of this house was the body of a 
girl who had been shot in the forehead," 

"On one occasion children were roped together and used 
as a military screen against the enemy. On another, sol- 
diers went into action carrying small children to protect 
themselves from flank fire." 

"At Eppeghem the dead body of a child of two was seen 
pinned to the ground with a German lance." 

"A witness from Malines states as follows: 'One day, 
when the Germans were not actually bombarding the town, 
I saw eight German soldiers in the street who were drunk. 
They were singing and making a lot of noise and dancing 
about. As the soldiers came along the street, I saw a 
small child — whether boy or girl I did not see — come out 
of a house. The child was about two years of age. The 
child came into the middle of the street, so as to be in the 
way of the soldiers. The soldiers were walking in twos. 
The first line of two passed the child. One of the second 
line, the man on the left, stepped aside and drove his 
bayonet with both hands into the child's stomach, lifting 
it into the air and carrying it away on his bayonet, he 
and his comrades still singing.' " 

"A British lance-corporal tells how a party of wounded 
British soldiers were left in a chalk-pit, all very badly 
hurt and unable to offer any resistance. One of them, 
an officer, held up his handkerchief, as a white flag, which 
attracted the attention of a party of about eight Germans. 
The Germans came to the edge of the pit. It was getting 
dusk, but the light was still good and everything clearly 
discernible. One of them, who appeared to be carrying 
no arms and who, at any rate, had no rifle, came a few 
feet down the slope into the chalk-pit, within eight or ten 
yards of some of the wounded men. He looked at the 
men, laughed, and said something in German to the 
Germans who were waiting on the edge of the cliff. There- 
upon one of them fired at the officer, then three or four of 



156 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

the ten soldiers were shot, then another officer and the wit- 
ness and the rest of the soldiers." 

"On the 6th of September, at Champguyon, Mme. 
Lowet was present at the martyrdom of her husband. 
She saw him in the hands of ten or fifteen soldiers who 
were putting him to death before his own house, and ran 
up and kissed him through the bars of the gate. She was 
brutally pushed back and fell, while the murderers dragged 
along the unhappy man, covered with blood, begging them 
to spare his life and protesting that he had done nothing 
to be treated thus. . . . When his wife found his body, 
it was horribly disfigured. His head was beaten in, one 
of his eyes hung from the socket, and one of his wrists was 
broken." 

On the 4th of September, German troops burnt the 
town of Clermont-en-Argonne, "and, while the houses 
blazed, the soldiers poured into the church, which stood 
by itself on the height, and danced there to the sound of 
the organ. Then, before leaving, they set fire to it with 
grenades as well as with vessels full of inflammable liquid. 
After the burning of Clermont, the bodies of the Mayor of 
Vauquois, M. Poinsignon, which was completely carbonised, 
and that of a young boy of eleven were found." 

"At Menthe-et-Moselle about fifty soldiers forced their 
way into the house of M. Vasse, who had collected a number 
of people in his cellar in the Faubourg de Nancy. The 
refugees made an effort to flee, but they were struck down 
one after the other as they came out. M. Mantre was 
murdered first, then his son Leon fell with his little sister, 
aged eight, in his arms. As he was not killed outright, the 
end of the rifle barrel was put to his head, and his brains 
were blown out. It was next the turn of the Kieffer 
family. The mother was wounded in the arm and shoulder. 
The father and little boy, aged ten, and the little girl, 
aged three, were shot. The murderers continued to fire 
on them after they had fallen. Kieffer, stretched on the 
ground, received another bullet in the forehead, and his 



HOW GERMANY WAGES WAR 157 

son had the top of his head blown off by a shot. Last of 
all, M. Stuiffert and one of Vasse's sons were murdered 
while Mme. Mantre was wounded by three bullets. M. 
Guillaume was dragged into the street and there found 
dead. Simonin, a young girl of seventeen, came out last 
from the cellar with her sister Jeanne, aged three. The 
latter had her elbow almost carried off by a bullet." 

"Nomeny, a pretty town of Gerbeviller, on the banks 
of the Mortagne, fell a victim to the fury of the Germans. 
. , . From the moment of their entry into the town, the 
Germans gave themselves up to the worst excesses, entering 
the houses with savage yells, burning the buildings, killing 
or arresting the inhabitants, sparing neither women nor 
old men. Out of 475 houses, 20 at most are still habit- 
able. More than 100 persons have disappeared, of whom 
50 at least have been massacred. Some were led into the 
fields to be shot; others were murdered in their houses or 
struck down as they passed through the streets, endeavour- 
ing to escape from the conflagration. Up to now 36 bodies 
have been identified. ..." 

"In the morning the enemy entered the house of M. 
and Mme. Lingenfeld, seized their son, thirty-six years 
of age, who wore the brassard of the Red Cross, tied his 
hands behind his back, dragged him into the street and 
shot him. They then returned to look for the father, an 
old man of seventy. Mme. Lingenfeld then took to flight. 
On her way she saw her son stretched on the ground and, 
as the unhappy man was still moving, some German sol- 
diers drenched him with petrol to which they set fire in 
the presence of the terrified mother. Meanwhile M. Lin- 
genfeld was led to La Prele, where he was executed." 

"At Herimenil, on the 29th of August, the enemy, who 
had arrived on the 24th, were guilty of monstrous acts. 
The inhabitants were invited to go to the church and were 
kept there for four days while their houses were sacked, 
and the French bombarded the village. A woman, who 



158 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

had succeeded with great trouble in leaving the church for 
a moment, was returning with a little milk for the cliildren. 
A captain, furious at seeing that this person had been 
allowed to pass, cried out: 'I did not intend that the door 
should be opened. I meant the French to fire on their 
own people.' This same captain a short time before was 
present when Mme. Winger, a young woman of twenty- 
three, was going to the church in obedience to the general 
order with her servants, a girl and two young women. 
Considering that tlieir progress was too slow he directed 
the soldiers to fire on them and the four victims fell mor- 
tally wounded. The Germans left their bodies in tlie street 
for two days." 

"A Belgian soldier, a volunteer, N , being wounded 

in the arm, was captured by the Germans on August i8. 
He was brought with twenty-seven other prisoners by road 
along the Demer. Two German companies were placed 
there. All the prisoners were driven before them and shot. 
Those who, in order to escape the bullets, jumped into the 
Demer, were shot in the river. The witness threw himself 
on the ground, simulating death. A German soldier came 
close to him and, noticing that he was alive, prepared to 
shoot him. An officer interfered, saying that the man was 
not worth the bullet and ordered him to be thrown into 
the river. The witness succeeded in getting hold of the 
branches of a bush on the bank, spent the whole night in 
the water, and managed to escape in the morning. At 
Surice. while the village was burning, a group of some fifty 
or sixt)'' persons of both sexes was driven along. The 
eighteen men were separated from the women and told 
that they were to be shot. Among them were the parish 
priests of Anthee, Onhaye, and Surice. and another ecclesi- 
astic. There were fathers and sons side by side; opposite 
them were their mothers and daughters, wailing and 
praying. The massacre was carried out under their eyes. 
All the men fell together, mown down by one volley. 
One or two showed signs of life, whereupon the soldiers 
finished them off with the butt-ends of their rifles. They 



HOW GERMANY WAGES WAR 159 

then turned out the pockets of the dead and stripped off 
some of their clothes." 

"At Bueken a massacre took place long after that 
hamlet had been occupied by the German troops. They 
had been staying there for ten days and the panic-stricken 
inhabitants had been doing their best to keep them in 
good temper by every possible means. On August 29 the 
men were all arrested and led to a meadow and their hands 
tied behind their backs. Then, according to the evidence 
of the witness who described the scene to us, eighteen men 
were shot including an old man of seventy and his three 
sons. They were executed in the presence of their wives 
and children. Before the volley was fired, an officer read 
out a sort of sentence of death, in which it was declared 
that one man was accused of being in possession of a book 
belonging to a German soldier. This book had been left 
by the soldier in the house where he had been quartered 
for the last ten days. Another man was declared to have 
been found carrying part of a German cartridge. The 
women, in the hope of saving the lives of their husbands, 
tried to call out, 'Long live Germany and the Kaiser.' 
When the massacre was over, the women and children 
were shut up in a room so small that no one could lie 
down. They were confined there for two days without food 
or drink." 

. "On reaching the square at Tamines the first thing we 
saw was a mass of bodies of civilians, extending for at least 
forty yards in length by six yards in depth. They had 
evidently been drawn up in rank to be shot. . . . An 
officer came for\vard and asked for volunteers to bury the 
bodies. . . . Fathers buried the bodies of their sons and 
sons those of their fathers. The women of the village 
had been marched out into the square and saw us at our 
work. All round were the burnt houses. There were in 
the square both soldiers and officers. They were drinking 
champagne. . . . We buried from 350 to 400 bodies. A 
list of the names of the victims has been drawn up. . . . 
While some of us were carrying the bodies, I saw some 



160 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

people stop and call to a German doctor. They had no- 
ticed that the man, whom they were carrying, was still 
alive. The doctor examined the wounded man and made 
a sign that he was to be buried with the rest. The plank 
on which he was lying was borne on again. I saw the 
wounded man raise his arm elbow-high. They called to 
the doctor again but he made the gesture that he was to 
be thrown into the trench with the others." 

"The Germans burnt, after sacking them, 264 houses in 
Tamines. Many persons including women and children 
were burnt or stifled in their own homes. Many were shot 
in the fields. The total number of victims was over 650. 
The commission of inquiry devoted special attention to 
ascertaining whether the inhabitants of the village had fired 
on the German troops. Every surviving witness unani- 
mously declared the contrary." 

"At the village of Warsage there was no inquiry. They 
cried out: 'Man hat geschossen' (Some one has fired) 
and they began to burn the neighbouring houses. They 
burst in the doors, broke the windows and dragged out the 
inhabitants. Two men were killed and about twenty-five 
houses and farms were set on fire. The soldiers fired 
through the open windows. I immediately intervened as 
Burgomaster and advised every one to keep calm. . . . The 
officer in command chose at least a dozen of the inhabi- 
tants, by chance including myself, and ordered us to march 
in front of the troops in silence with our hands behind 
our backs, declaring that if one shot were fired in the 
village, we should all be instantly shot. When we reached 
the camp we were commanded to lie down on the ground 
or to kneel, and observe absolute silence. ... I declare 
that we were not questioned; they did not even tell us 
of what we were accused ; there was not the smallest in- 
quiry, no sort of investigation. We had been there about 
a quarter of an hour when they took six of the younger 
ones among us. They were Messrs. Leuter. . . . They led 
them about fifty metres away from the group, took ofif their 
jackets and shot them." 



HOW GERMANY WAGES WAR 161 

"Directly they arrived in tlie district called 'Fonds 
de Leffe' the soldiers entered the houses, expelled the oc- 
cupants, killed the men and set fire to the houses. M. 
Victor Poncelet was killed in his house in front of his wife 
and children. M. Himmer, manager of the factory at 
Leffe and Vice-Consul of the Argentine Republic, was shot, 
with a number of his workmen: 152 of the staff of the 
factory were murdered. The Premonstratensian Church 
was, I am informed, entered during Mass. The men were 
dragged out and shot on the spot. One of the Fathers 
also was murdered. But what is the good of giving further 
details? One circumstance will sum up all. Of the whole 
population of this district only nine men (apart from old 
men) remain alive. The women and children were shut up 
in the Abbey, which was pillaged." 

"The prisoners were arranged in a long row to serve as a 
screen against the fire of the French while the Germans 
defiled behind this living rampart. As soon as the French 
recognised the victims offered to them, they ceased to fire. 
A young lady, Mdlle. Marsigny, was however killed before 
her parents' eyes. She was struck in the head by a French 
bullet. . . . The prisoners were exposed in this way for 
nearly two hours and then taken back to prison. The same 
thing occurred to a group of citizens who were exposed in 
the prison square to the fire of the French. They were 
made to keep their hands raised. They included a man of 
eighty, M. Laurent, the Hon. President of the Tribunal, 
his son-in-law, the judge, and the latter's wife and children. 
There were no casualties, as the French ceased fire and the 
Germans were able to cross without risk. . . . The number 
subjected to this treatment was at least 150. . , . About 
six o'clock, the others were taken to a place in front of my 
house, not far from the prison. There the able-bodied 
men were taken out and lined up in four rows against my 
garden wall. An officer addressed them in German and 
then, in the presence of the women and children, gave the 
order to fire. All fell down. The soldiers, looking on 
from the terrace formed by the garden of M. Fanquinet, 



162 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

the architect, burst into fits of laughter. ... I believe the 
exact number killed here was 129. 

"The troops who came by the Froidval road occupied 
the district of Penant. The inhabitants were seized on the 
arrival of the Germans and kept under guard. . . . When 
the fire of the French slackened, the Germans began to 
construct a bridge, but they were still annoyed by a few 
shots. As these were infrequent, the Germans, honestly 
or otherwise, came to the conclusion that they were fired by 
francs-tireurs. They sent M. Bourdon, the Assistant 
Registrar of the Court, to announce that if the fire con- 
tinued, all the prisoners would be executed. He did so, 
and, recrossing the Meuse, surrendered himself and in- 
formed the German officer that he had been able to make 
sure that only French soldiers were firing. A few more 
French bullets were fired, and then a monstrous event took 
place, which one's mind would refuse to believe, were it not 
that the survivors who bore witness and the gaping wounds 
of the dead bodies furnished absolutely conclusive proof. 
The whole mass of prisoners, men, women, and children, 
were pushed up against a wall and shot. Eighty victims 
fell at this spot. Was it here or at the Neffe Viaduct, 
which I mention later, that a three-months old child was 
killed? I no longer remember. 

"That evening the Germans searched among the bodies. 
Under the heap a few poor wretches were still living. They 
were dragged out and added to some prisoners brought from 
elsewhere and put to dig a grave for the dead. They were 
to be deported to Germany. Among them was a fifteen- 
year-old boy, the son of Registrar Bourdon, who was found 
with the bodies of his father, mother, sister and brother. 

"Those buried included a woman who was still living. 
She groaned, but it mattered not. She was thrown into the 
trench with the others. 

"In the Neffe district the Germans searched the houses, 
burning a fair number but leaving the rest alone. Some 
of the people were left at liberty, others were expelled from 
their houses and shot on the road. Others again were 
arrested and taken to Germany. In some cases entire 



HOW GERMANY WAGES WAR 163 

families were murdered, without regard to age or sex, in 
particular the Guerigs and the Morelles. 

"One house caught on fire where a woman was lying with 
a broken leg. Some of the people asked permission from 
the soldiers to rescue her. It was refused and she was burnt 
alive. . . . All Monday and Tuesday the pillaging was 
continued and the destruction of the city by fire was com- 
pleted." 

"A woman of Liege gave us revolting details of the 
manner in which the wounded transported into Germany 
were treated under her eyes. On October 2.^, she was 
returning by train from Brussels to Liege. 'At Landen,' 
she declares, 'I got down on the platform and approached 
a goods wagon. I saw there seven English soldiers, five 
wounded and two dead. The five wounded, so the German 
soldiers told me, had been there for four days. They com- 
plained bitterly. There was a military kitchen on the plat- 
form. A corporal of the 57th infantry took a bowl of soup 
and bent down before the wounded. They made as if to take 
the bowl, but the German soldiers kicked them in the 
stomach and the corporal returned the bowl. The other 
soldiers took buckets of water with a ladle and upset them 
over the Englishmen, soaking them with water and throw- 
ing the buckets over them. I said to the corporal: *Tt is 
disgraceful of you to ill-treat wounded men." He answered 
me in good French : "These swine have got to die." I 
answered: "Kill them then at once." And he said: "Don't 
be afraid. We are killing them all, but all in good time." ' " 

"Andre Willem, sacristan of the village of Schaffan, was 
tied to a tree and burnt alive." 

"At Sempst were found the bodies of two men, partially 
carbonised. One of them had his legs cut off at the knees; 
the other had the arms and legs cut off. A workman had 
been struck several times by bayonets, and then, while 
still alive, the Germans had poured petroleum over him 
and thrown hini into a house to which they set fire. A 



164 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

woman who came out of her house was killed in the same 
way." 

"Near Malines numerous corpses of peasants lay on the 
ground in a position of supplication, their arms lifted and 
their hands clasped." 

"Some minutes passed : then under our eyes and amid 
the shrieks of women who were crying 'Shoot me too; 
shoot me with my husband!' and the wailing of the 
children, the men were lined up on the edge of the hollow 
way which runs from the high road to the bottom of the 
village. They waved last greetings to us, some with their 
hands, others with their hats or caps. The young Henri 
Jacques was leaning on the shoulder of one of the priests, 
as if to seek help and courage from him; he was sobbing, 
'I am too young; I can't face death bravely.' Unable 
to bear the sight any longer, I turned my back to the road 
and covered my eyes with my hands. The soldiers fired 
a volley, and the men fell in a heap. Some one said to 
me, 'Look, they are all down!' But they were not all 
shot dead; several were finished off by having their skulls 
beaten in with rifle-butts. . . . 

"When the massacre was over the Germans plundered 
the corpses." 

"Old men and boys and even women and young girls 
were shot like rabbits. The slightest failure to comply with 
the peremptory demands of the invader was punished with 
instant death. The cure of Pradelle, having failed to find 
the key of the church tower, was put against the wall and 
shot; a shepherd near Rebais who failed to produce bread 
for the German troops had his head blown off by a rifle; 
a young mother at Bailleul who was unable to produce suf- 
ficient coffee to satisfy the demands of twenty-three Ger- 
man soldiers had her baby seized by one of the latter and 
its head dipped in scalding water." 

"It was now 5.15 p.m. and I could see that the Germans 
had cut me and all these men off from our own troops. I 
took the men of the — Highlanders back to where the others 



HOW GERMANY WAGES WAR 166 

were. I now had about forty men with me. For the sake 
of the wounded men we decided to surrender. . . . 

"I stood on the top of the parapet and held up my hands. 
A large party of Germans advanced. . . . When they drew 
near I said: *We surrender.' One German, speaking 
English, said: 'All right, come along this way, every 
one.' ... 

"About thirty of these Germans led us into a circular 
traverse In Pekin Trench, and the English-speaking Ger- 
man said. Pack in there and stay.' All the Germans then 
went out of sight. . . . 

"After we had been there about tv/o minutes, a bomb was 
thrown into the traverse where we were, one bomb from 
one side and one from the other. I shouted to the men to 
clear out if possible. Only one man and myself jumped 
over the parapet. ... I then jumped into a shell hole about 
fifteen yards from the traverse. It was almost full of 
water, in which I stood up to my neck. The other man 
was shot." 

"At Elewijit, on the 27th, they amused themselves by 
mutilating the hands of four men : the three brothers Van- 
der Aa and Frangois Salu. A little further to the east the 
first German troops who had passed through Schafen, near 
Diest, on the 14th or 24th August, had there tortured the 
blacksmith Broeden. All day long he had laboured, shoe- 
ing the horses of the enemy's cavalry; only in the eve- 
ning he repaired to the church with the sacristan, with 
the object of saving some precious articles, which had not 
been placed in security. He was seized by the soldiers. 
The Germans broke his wrists, his arms and his legs — per- 
haps he suffered yet other tortures. When he was prac- 
tically lifeless. . . . they threw him head first into a ditch 
dug for the purpose; then the ditch was filled, leaving his 
feet protruding." 

"Private J. C , Scottish Fusiliers, ist Batt. : 'At 

Locre, near Bailleul, I was billeted in the church there at 
the beginning of December. The church had not been 



166 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

shelled, but had been looted and the crucifixes had been 
smashed, and all the images and things of value appeared 
to have been torn away.' " 

"Private S , C Company, ist King's R.R. : *It was 

on September ii, I can never forget that date, it was after 
we left the Marne, and a day or two before the Aisne, we 
were engaged with the enemy at a distance of about 1200 
yards. They put up a white flag in their centre and waved 
it from side to side. We stopped firing, whereupon they 
fired heavily from their right flank. A second time they 
put up the white flag, this time on the right flank; but we 
took no notice of this and kept on firing.' " 

"J. G , Lance-Corporal, King's Own, ist Batt. : 

'At the end of November, the second day after we arrived 
at Nieppe, two of us entered an estaminet and found the 
landlady crying; she told us that about thirteen Germans 
violated her daughter and shot her husband against a wall 
in front of her eyes. She said there were a lot of other 
cases in Nieppe.' " 

"Private K , ist Loyal North Lanes: 'On Monday 

night we attacked them and took two trenches. Eveiy- 
thing was quiet till the next morning except for sniping. 
At about 8.30 they advanced upon us, and the officer of — 
Company, seeing the men were overpowered, put up the 
white flag, and the men put their hands up to surrender. 
The Germans advanced, and when they got up to the 
trenches, they shot them each in their trenches as they stood. 
/ saw this. I was on the left flank/ " 

"Private W , [in the first Camerons] : 'We were 

advancing, Black Watch on our right, Scots Guards on our 
left. Germans put up white flag and we advanced to take 
prisoners. At thirty yards they opened their ranks, and 
machine-guns concealed behind fired upon us, the Germans 
in front also firing- their rifles.' " 



'& 



"Private S , ist Batt. Glo'sters: *0n August 26, 

first day of retreat from Fevrel, we were leaving the 



HOW GERMANY WAGES WAR 167 

trenches, B Co. covering us on the left. It was just where 

Captain S was shot. Private L , who had been 

shot twice, was bayoneted when lying on the ground by 
two Germans. I and the whole Company saw it.' " 

"J- B , Despatch Rider, Signal Co., ist Div. R.E. : 

'About September i6, near Paissy. At a distance of about 
300 yards we saw through our glasses one of our despatch- 
riders (A of Signal Co., R.E.), shot while riding his 

motor-cycle; he fell off, and while lying on ground was 
speared by three Uhlans, one after the other. Uhlans at- 
tempted to burn him with his own petrol, but made off 
when they saw us coming. We found his body half- 
burned when we reached it.' " 

Statements taken down, after cross-examination by a 
Staff Officer at General Headquarters, as to incidents in 
the neighbourhood of Ypres : — 

"Private B. S , ist Black Watch, says that he saw 

Germans bayonet our wounded as they lay on the ground. 
He was wounded in the leg himself, but, seeing this, he 
managed to get away. 

"Afterwards he was with German wounded, who told 
him that they had been ordered to kill all English prisoners." 

Statement by Major , O.C. of a Cavalry Field Am- 
bulance: "On October 17, at Moorslede, north-east of 
Ypres, the Germans were reported as having strangled a 
young baker in this place. The inhabitants stated that he 
had been taken by the Germans to bake for them, and that 
he attempted to escape. The enemy caught him and stuffed 
a woollen scarf he was wearing down his throat, causing 

suffocation. One of my officers, Lieut. P , viewed the 

body in the convent next day, and found the scarf stuffed 
in the man's throat." 

Driver B , R.F.A. : "Somewhere between Chantilly 

and Villers-Cotterets, about the end of August, just after 
we started advancing, we were marching through a village, 
and the villagers called us into a house and showed us the 



168 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

body of a middle-aged man, with both arms cut off by a 
sword, pointed to him and said 'Allemands.' They told 
our R.A.M.C. men in French that he had been killed when 
trying to protect his daughter. 

"In the next village, before we got to the Aisne, the vil- 
lagers showed us the dead body of a woman, naked, on 
the ground, badly mutilated, her breasts cut off, and her 
body ripped up. They said 'Allemands.' " 

Private W. D , Hampshires : "About seven weeks 

ago, when the Germans tried hard to break through, we 
were about two hours from a place which we call the 
Chateau, where the Germans pitched shell every day, espe- 
cially at a big tower place which is there. Our platoon 
were in the trenches in the order left to right of 5,6,7,8, 
and then came C Company in their trenches. The wounded 
left with the dead in the C trench were half buried by its 
having been blown in. The Germans enfiladed the 
wounded, shot them, bayoneted them, jumped on them." 



"A. X., of the 26th Regiment, deposes as follows: He 
was ordered, and the order was read to the regiment, to 
kill everybody and everything met with in the course of 
the campaign, and to destroy everything Serbian. ... A 
peasant who served as guide to the troops was shot by 
Commandant Stenger and his soldiers. ... A Croatian 
named Dochan boasted of having killed a woman, a child, 
and two old men and invited his comrades to come with 
him to see his victims." 

"E. X., of the 6th Regiment of Infantry, states that the 
Hungarian captain, Nobosnai, gave orders before crossing 
the frontier that everything living should be killed from 
children of five to the oldest men. When the frontier had 
been crossed and the troops had arrived at the first Serbian 
village, the captain gave orders that two hundred houses 
should be burnt and every one killed, even the children in 
the cradle. About thirty women, children and old men 



HOW GERMANY WAGES WAR 169 

were taken prisoners and driven before the troops during 
the fight. E. X. saw these civilians wounded or killed by 
the bullets of the opposing forces. This happened at 
Okolischte." 

"Lieutenant Draguicha Stoiadinovitch, 13th Regiment 
of Infantry, deposes as follows : 'On the 7th and 8th 
August, being in command of the advance sentries, my 
rounds took me to the village of Zoulkovitch and its neigh- 
bourhood. I saw in a ravine the bodies of twenty-five boys 
from twelve to sixteen years of age and two old men of 
more than sixty years heaped one upon the other, muti- 
lated with bayonet thrusts and pierced with bullets. Ex- 
ploring a house I found in it two dead women ; their bod- 
ies were riddled with bullets. In another house an old 
woman lay dead with her daughter. . . . Near a fire-place, 
in which the fire had gone out, was seated an old man cov- 
ered with bleeding wounds inflicted with bayonets, hag- 
gard and dying. He said to me: "I don't know how it 
happens that I am still alive. For three days I have sat 
here looking on my dead wife and child, whose bodies lie 
before the door. After having covered us with shame they 
brutally bayoneted us and then the cowards took to flight." 
In a court,' continues the lieutenant, 'I found a little boy 
of four years old who had been thrown there after being 
killed. His body had been partially eaten by dogs. Near 
him lay a young woman in whose lap had been placed her 
nursling child with its throat cut. . . . On the floor an old 
woman, who had also been killed, was just visible under a 
heap of carpets. On the opposite side of the village I 
found two old men killed before the door of a little cot- 
tage^ Opposite the latter two young girls were stretched 
out dead. The peasants told me that the Austrians had 
brought all the inhabitants of both sexes, including the 
children, to their camp and ordered them to shout "Long 
live the brave Austrian army! Long live the Emperor 
Francis Joseph!" and those who refused were shot on the 
spot' "... 

"Lieutenant levreme Georgevitch, Drina division, states 



170 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

that, in the Commune of Dornitza, Maxime Vasitah, aged 
fifty-three, was killed by being fastened to the wheel of a 
mill which was set in motion. Every time the wheel 
brought him round before the Austrian soldiers they 
amused themselves by plunging their bayonets into him." 

"Colonel Dioura Dokitch, commanding the 20th Regi- 
ment of Infantry of the first Ban, states: *In the meadow 
near the brook on the left bank of the ladar I saw the 
following scene. ... A group of men, women, and chil- 
dren, fifteen in all, stretched out dead and joined together 
by their hands, the majority being killed with the bayonet. 
A young girl had been struck with the bayonet in the left 
jaw and the blade had come out by the cheek-bone. Many 
of the corpses had no teeth.' " 

"I have already mentioned the deposition of Colonel 
D. X., of the 28th Regiment of Infantry, who stated that 
he had been present at the massacre of sixty civilians near 
the church at Shabatz. I ascertained that there was in fact 
a large common pit behind the church of Shabatz and I 
had it opened. The pit was 10 metres long and 3.50 
metres wide. At a depth of one metre a number of bodies, 
heaped together in different positions, were disclosed. 
Some had their feet uppermost; others lay on their sides, 
or were doubled up. Everything showed that the bodies 
were covered with earth, just as they fell into the pit. 
How many of those who were thus buried were alive at 
the time? . . . The age of the victims, to judge by the 
bodies, varied between ten and eighty. It was impossible 
to determine exactly the number of people buried in this 
grave. I personally ascertained that there were at least 
eighty." 

"Near the railway station at Lechnitza there is a com- 
mon pit 20 metres long, 3 metres broad and 2 metres deep. 
In this pit are buried 109 prisoners aged between eighteen 
and eighty. They were hostages from a neighbouring vil- 
lage, whom the Austro-Hungarians brought to this place, 
where they had already begun to dig their graves. They 



HOW GERMANY WAGES WAR 171 

were bound together with ropes, encircled by a wire. Then 
the soldiers took their place on the railway embankment, 
about 50 metres from the victims, and fired at them. They 
all fell down the pit and other soldiers immediately covered 
them with earth without ascertaining whether they were 
dead or only wounded. But it is certain that some of them 
were not mortally wounded, and some perhaps were not 
wounded at all, but they were put into the grave with the 
others and buried alive. 

"While this execution was going on, a second group of 
prisoners was brought up, and when the first were shot 
these others were forced to shout : 'Long live the Emperor 
Franz-Josef !' 

"I had this pit opened and have satisfied myself by the 
position of the bodies that they fell pell-mell into the 
hole. It seems that some of them tried to escape from the 
pit." 

'Tn the town of Shabatz more than 1000 safes were 
opened and rifled. I could only find In the town two safes 
remaining unbroken, and there were marks upon those 
showing clearly that an unsuccessful attempt had been made 
to open them." 

"Ivan Efremow, of a Cossack Regiment, received a 
wound in his leg at Tarnowa, May 23, 1915, and was made 
prisoner. As he professed ignorance in reply to a num- 
ber of questions regarding the position of the Russian 
forces, the interpreting officer struck him several times with 
his fist in the face. . . . 

"He was then led into another room where he was 
stripped and placed upon a table. . . . The officer took a 
needle, attached to the wires of an electrical machine, and 
applied it to Efremow' s leg. Efremow, in spite of the 
electric shock, refused to answer the questions. This tor- 
ture lasted half an hour, and one of the doctors watched 
Efremow's pulse all the time, 

"On the fourth day, Efremow was again interrogated. 
. . . The interpreting officer brought a red-hot bar of iron 



172 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

about as thick as a finger, and ordered his men to place the 
prisoner in a sitting posture on a chair. The doctors then 
took hold of his arms, while the officer lifted up his legs 
and rubbed the red-hot iron over the soles of his feet. . . , 
He fainted. . . . Ht subsequently escaped, and a medical 
examination confirmed the truth of his story." 

"A Russian prisoner, who escaped, recounted before the 
Commission how an officer ordered the killing of a Cossack 
captured at the same time as himself. Two soldiers 
dragged the Cossack aside and hacked the whole of his body 
with big knives. 

''They tore off some strips of skin from the shoulders 
to the legs, and did not cease their barbarity until the man 
was dead." 

"In the latter half of June the regiment, in which this 
witness was one of the rank and file, took part in a battle 
near Ivangorod. When the fighting was over, the regiment 
settled down to rest. Some of the men, however, went 
to help the sanitary attendants to bring in the wounded 
and place them in a wooden cart-house or shed, roofed 
with straw, at one end of the village. According to state- 
ments made by the Red Cross bearers, from sixty-six to 
sixty-eight men were lodged in this building. At eleven 
o'clock at night there was a sudden and violent rattle of 
rifle fire. The village had been surrounded by the Germans. 
The witness seized his rifle and started to leave with three 
comrades, but in the darkness they stumbled into a German 
trench, and were taken prisoners. Their weapons were 
taken from them, and all four Russians were led to the 
same cart-shed to which the witness Doruzhka had assisted 
to carry the Russian wounded. A German officer on the 
spot gave an order to his German soldiers, and then he 
gathered up an armful of the straw littered over the floor 
of the shed, placed it against one of the corners of the 
building, and set fire to it with a match. The witness de- 
clares that he almost fainted when he saw this officer set- 
ting fire to the shed. The straw blazed up at once, the 



HOW GERMANY WAGES WAR 173 

flames began to envelop the wooden walls, and when it 
reached the roof, piercing shrieks came from the wounded 
inmates calling for help. At this moment the officer, who 
fired the shed, approached the prisoners, who were stand- 
ing near, and without uttering a word, he discharged his 
revolver point blank at one of the comrades of the witness, 
who instantly fell to the ground dead. Then this officer 
struck witness's other comrade with something in the lower 
part of the body, and by the light of the conflagration wit- 
ness noticed that the man's intestines were protruding. 
Doruzhka rushed to one side and managed to break away 
from a group of German soldiers and escaped unhurt, al- 
though three shots were fired after him. The witness, 
after tramoing all night, fell in with one of the Russian 
pickets. 

"The foregoing was deposed to by the witness Doruzhka 
on examination by the Examining Magistrate of the ist 
Dnieprovsky District." 

"In their leisure moments the German soldiers amused 
themselves with practical joking at the expense of the pris- 
oners. They announced that an extra portion of food 
would be given out, and when the Russians hurried to the 
kitchen, a whole pack of dogs were let loose on them. The 
animals flew at the prisoners and dispersed them in all di- 
rections, while the Germans looked on and roared with 
laughter. Sometimes the prisoners were offered an extra 
ladle of soup, or piece of bread, if they would expose their 
backs to a certain number of blows with a whip. Our 
hungry and tormented soldiers often bought an extra piece 
of bread at this price, and it was thrown to them as if they 
had been dogs." 

"Having received no food for two days, the Russian 
prisoners, who fully expected to get some bread at this sta- 
tion, were gazing with hungry and longing looks into the 
distance, when they saw women dressed as Sisters of 
Mercy distributing bread and sausages to the German sol- 
diers. One of these Sisters went up to the truck in which 



174 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

I was standing, and a Russian soldier at the door stretched 
out his hand for something to eat, but the woman simply 
struck it and smeared the soldier's face with a piece of 
sausage. She then called all the prisoners 'Russian swine' 
and went away from the side of the train." 

"Well may the Russian Government say in their cover- 
ing communication that 'the forms of punishment' — if we 
can speak of punishment when no offence had been com- 
mitted — 'remind one of the tortures of the Middle Ages.' 
Other documents in my possession recite how the prisoners 
were harnessed to ploughs and carts, like cattle, and lashed 
with long leather whips; how a man, who fainted from 
exhaustion, was immediately bayoneted, while another who 
fell out of the ranks to pick up a rotten turnip shared a 
like fate; how wounded men were forced to stand naked 
for hours in the frost until gangrene set in, tied up for 
hours to posts with their toes just touching the ground 
until, the blood rising to the head, copious haemorrhage 
took place from the mouth, nose and ears; how yet others 
who, exhausted with hunger and fatigue, could not keep 
up on the march, were bayoneted or clubbed where they 
lay. As for the conduct of the German populace, let the 
following speak for itself — 

" *The peaceful inhabitants along the routes traversed 
in Germany showed the greatest hostility towards the pris- 
oners, whom they reviled as "Russian swine and dogs." 
Women and even children threw stones and sand at them, 
and spat right in their faces. . . . Even the wounded men 
were not spared by these demented Germans, who struck 
them pulled their moustaches, and spat in their 
faces.' " 



The above examples of Teutonic modes of warfare are 
taken almost at random from the Belgian Official Reports 
on the Violation of the Rights of Nations and the Laws 
and Customs of War, the Official Report of the French 
Commission, the Report of the Committee appointed by 



HOW GERMANY WAGES WAR 175 

His Majesty's Government, under the presidency of Lord 
Bryce, the Official Investigation by Professor Morgan and 
the Official Report by R. A. Reiss, Professor of Criminol- 
ogy at the University of Lausanne, who was deputed by the 
Serbian tjovernment to inquire into the atrocities com- 
mitted by the Austro-Hungarian troops. They are based 
for the most part on the testimony of eye-witnesses. In- 
finite pains were taken to sift the evidence, as will be seen 
from the following quotations from the prefaces of these 
works. 

"There might be some exaggeration in one witness, pos- 
sibly delusion in another, inaccuracy in a third. When, 
however, we found that things that had, at first, seemed 
improbable were testified to by many witnesses, coming 
from different places, having had no communication with 
one another, and knowing nothing of one another's state- 
ments, the points in which they all agreed became more and 
more evidently true. And when this convergence of testi- 
mony, this convergence upon what were substantially the 
same broad facts, showed itself in hundreds of deposi- 
tions, the truth of these broad facts stood out beyond ques- 
tion. The force of the evidence is accumulative. Its 
worth can be estimated only by perusing the testimony as a 
whole. If any further confirmation had been needed, we 
found it in the diaries in which German officers and private 
soldiers have recorded instances just such as those to which 
the Belgian witnesses depose.^ 

"It [our Report] includes, however, a very limited part 
of the findings at which we should have been able to arrive, 
if we had not submitted all the evidence, which was before 
us, to severe criticism and rigorous examination. We have, 
indeed, believed it to be our duty only to place on record 
those facts which, being established beyond dispute, con- 
stitute with absolute certainty what may be clearly termed 
crimes, omitting those, the proving of which were, in our 
view, insufficient, or which, however destructive and cruel 
they were, might have been the results of acts of war prop- 

^ Report of the Committee appointed by H.B.M. Govern- 
ment. 



176 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

erly so-called, rather than of wilful excesses, attributable 
to the enemy, 

"Thus we are convinced that none of the incidents which 
we have investigated could be disputed in good faith. In 
addition, the proof of each of them does not depend only 
on our personal observations; it is founded chiefly on 
photographs and on a mass of evidence received in judicial 
form, with the sanction of an oath. . , . 

*Tn truth, it can be stated that never has a war carried 
on between civilised nations, assumed the savage and 
ferocious character of the one which at this moment is 
being waged on our soil by an implacable adversary. Pil- 
lage, rape, arson, and murder are the common practice of 
our enemies; and the facts which have been revealed to us 
day by day at once constitute definite crimes against com- 
mon rights, punished by the codes of every country with 
the most severe and the most dishonouring penalties and 
prove an astonishing degeneration in German habits of 
thought since 1870." ^ 

"In the pages of this book there is unfolded, in the sober 
and restrained language of a sworn judicial statement, the 
story of shameful and unspeakable crimes. It is the plain 
narrative, in all its poignant reality, of the outrages com- 
mitted by the German soldiery when opposed to the chival- 
rous and heroic resistance of the Belgian nation. We fin- 
ish its perusal with a shudder of horror. And yet there 
remains with us the thought that the inquiry of which it 
is the outcome is still proceeding, that there are other large 
areas to which it has not been possible to extend investiga- 
tions, that the picture of carnage and destruction is there- 
fore still incomplete, and that as yet we know but a part 
of the truth. The veil will be lifted only as Belgium is 
cleared of the enemy; as this work proceeds the melancholy 
list of crimes and misdeeds will assuredly be lengthened. 

"For the honour of humanity and of the twentieth cen- 
tury we might well desire that we were not compelled to 

* Official Report of the French Commission on German 
Atrocities in France. English Translation published by the Daily 
Chronicle. 



HOW GERMANY WAGES WAR 177 

give full credence to the stories of the atrocious acts, which 
have been committed far from the field of battle and in the 
by-ways, as it were, of the theatre of war. Unhappily 
doubt is not admissible. The book is a clear, precise, and 
synthetic summary of statements made by actual witnesses 
— ^persons who have seen with their own eyes the deeds to 
which they testify; many, indeed, have either endured tor- 
tures themselves or have suffered through those who were 
dearest to them. One and all have spoken their woes with 
hearts overflowing and eyes filled with tears. Their testi- 
mony is confirmed by indisputable proofs. 

"These are to be found in the ruined heaps, which en- 
cumber the streets of Belgian towns and country roads, 
more particularly in the district of the Meuse, from Dinant 
to Hastiere, and in those of Aerschot, Louvain, Malines 
and Termonde; in the shattered walls, the tottering gables, 
and the sad fire-blackened stones, which remain as land- 
marks tracing the route followed by devastating and mur- 
derous hordes. 

"And, again, they are to be found in the printed proclama- 
tions issued by the German commanders, which are still to be 
seen, although partly destroyed by the flames, on all wall 
spaces in the towns and villages. These serve to show the 
extent of the error into which leaders may be drawn by a 
spirit of ferocity, and to make one realise the blind and piti- 
less savagery which, in many places, has filled the ordinary 
soldiery and stimulated them to commit the worst excesses. 

"All the evidence has been certified and submitted to 
severe criticism by the Commission appointed by the Bel- 
gian Minister of Justice at the beginning of the war. The 
Commission was instructed to conduct an inquiry into acts 
committed in violation of International Law by the invaders 
of the country. Meetings have been held at Brussels, 
Antwerp and Havre; a Delegation appointed by the Com- 
mission also met in London. The names of the eminent 
men appointed as members of the Commission are in 
themselves a sufficient guarantee of high competence and, 
at the same time, of absolute impartiality." ^ 
* Preface to the Report of the Official Belgian Commission. 



178 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

"My method of inquiry was twofold — I availed myself 
of both oral evidence and written evidence. As regards 
the former, the evidence taken at the base hospitals was 
wholly of this character. The method which I adopted in 
taking it was as follows : — 

"I made it a rule to explain to the soldier or officer, at 
the outset, that the inquiry was an official one, and that 
he must be prepared to put his name to any testimony he 
might elect to give. 

"I allowed the soldier to tell his story in his own way and 
in his own words ; but after, or in the course of, the recital, 
I always cross-examined him as to details, inquiring in 
particular ( i ) whether he directly witnessed the event him- 
self ; (2) what was the date and place of the occurrence — ■ 
to establish these, I have frequently gone over the opera- 
tions with the witness with the aid of a military map and a 
diary of the campaign; (3) whether, in the case of hear- 
say evidence, he heard the story direct from the subject of 
it, and, in particular, whether he was versed in the language 
employed; (4) whether he could give me the name of any 
person or persons with him, particularly officers, who also 
witnessed the event or heard the story. 

"After such cross-examination I then took down the 
narrative, if satisfied that it possessed any value, read it 
over to the soldier, and then obtained his signature. This, 
however, was often only the first stage, as I have not infre- 
quently been able to obtain confirmation of the evidence 
so obtained, by subsequent inquiries at General or Divi- 
sional Headquarters, either among members of the staff 
or from company officers or from the civil authorities. . . . 

"I have often found the statements so made subsequently 
corroborated; I have rarely, if ever, found them contra- 
dicted. I ascribe this result to my having applied rigid 
rules as to the reception of evidence in the first in- 
stance." ^ 

"I conducted my inquiry with every necessary precau- 

^ German Atrocities: an Official Investigation, by J. H. Mor- 
gan, M.A., late Home Office Commissioner with the British Expe- 
ditionary Force. 



HOW GERMANY WAGES WAR 179 

tion. I did not limit myself to interrogating hundreds of 
Austrian prisoners and hundreds of eye-witnesses; I went 
to the spot, sometimes with shells bursting around me, to 
inform myself of everything that it was possible to investi- 
gate ; I opened graves ; I examined the dead and wounded ; 
I visited bombarded towns; I went into houses and I car- 
ried on there a scientific inquiry, using the most scrupu- 
lous methods. In short, I did my utmost to investigate and 
verify the facts which I report in this work." ^ 

The Russian Official Commisssion, appointed to inquire 
into the subject of atrocities committed upon Russian peas- 
ants includes : "Instances of mutilation, eyes and tongues 
torn out, the killing and burning of the wounded, outrages 
on women and children, pillages, and contributions levied on 
captured villages." 

Let those who have any lingering doubt as to the truth of 
these stories read the statements of the witnesses them- 
selves. They will see that those who have investigated 
them, far from exaggerating, have erred on the other side 
and refrained from recording events which some juries 
might consider as "non proven." 

^ Comment les Austro-Hongrois ont fait la guerre en Serhie, by 
Professor R. A. Reiss, Librairie Almand Colin, Paris. 



VII 



THE TESTIMONY OF GERMAN SOLDIERS AND OTHER 
EVIDENCE 

The following incidents are recorded in the diaries of 
German officers and soldiers killed or captured by the 
Allies. Facsimiles of some of them are given in the works 
of Dampierre, Bedier,^ etc. It will be noticed in a few 
cases that the German soldiers themselves were ashamed of 
the black crimes they committed. 

"At Louvain i8o inhabitants are stated to have been 
shot after digging their own graves. . . ." 

"August 24 : We took about a thousand prisoners. At 
least five hundred were shot. The village was burnt and 
its inhabitants were also shot." ^ 

The German soldier Matbern, of the 4th Company of 
Jagers, states in his diary that at a village between Birnal 
and Dinant, on August 23, "about 220 inhabitants were 
shot and the village was burnt. . . . All villages, chateaux, 
and houses were burnt down during the night. It was a 
beautiful sight to see the fires all round us in the distance." 

"Mutilation of the wounded is the order of the day," 
wrote Paul Gloede of the 9th Pioneers in his diary. 

"How many innocent people must have fallen with 
those who were shot! The village has been literally pil- 
laged. The Huns and the lansquenets of the Middle Ages 

^ Les Crimes Allemands, d'apres des temoignages allemands. 
"From the diaries of German soldiers, names unknown. 

180 



THE TESTIMONY OF GERMAN SOLDIERS 181 

could not have done better. Houses are still burning, and, 
where the fire did not destroy them, we rased to the ground 
what was left standing." — {From the notebook of a Ger- 
man Officer mortally wounded at Gosee, ''Belgian Official 
Report" vol. ii. pp. 168-70.) 

"The inhabitants, without exception (samf-und-sonders) 
were brought out and shot. This shooting was heartbreak- 
ing, as they all knelt down and prayed, but that was no 
ground for mercy. A few shots rang out, and they fell 
back into the green grass and slept for ever." — {From the 
diary of Eitel Anders.) 

"After shooting in one night more than seventy civilians, 
we sat down to eat our night meal among the dead bodies. 
We had eaten nothing since the morning. The requisition 
in the houses brought us quantities of wine and liqueurs, 
but no provisions." — {Diary of Private P. H. of lySth 
Regiment of Infantry. Facsimile published in "UAlle- 
magne et le Droit des Gens.") 

"The charming village of Gue d'Hossus appears to have 
been burnt down without any cause. A cyclist, they say, 
fell from his machine which caused his gun to go off. Im- 
mediately he was fired at. The male inhabitants were 
simply flung into the flames. It is to be hoped that such 
horrors {Scheusslichkeiten) will not recur. At Leppes 
about two hundred men were shot. There it was necessary 
to make an example, and if innocent people had to suffer 
that was inevitable, but one ought to require a verification 
of any suspicion of culpability in order to control this shoot- 
ing without distinction of all the men." {From a notebook 
found on a Saxon Officer; "UAllemagne et le Droit des 
Gens, p. 247.) 

"The carnage was horrible. The village was completely 
burnt down, the French were thrown into the houses on 
fire, civilians and all burnt together." — {Diary of the Ger- 
man Soldier Hassemer at Sommepy {Marne) : "Paroles 
Allemandes" p. 166.) 



182 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

"At Lingeviller, August 22, the village was destroyed 
by the nth Battalion Pioneers. Three women were hanged 
from the trees." — {From an unsigned diary: "Paroles Alle- 
mandes, p. 167.) 

"Together with Mobins I regaled myself in a house on 
preserved French vegetables. That day I ate of fifteen 
different kinds of things just as they came. There was 
wine too, and handkerchiefs. . . . That day anyhow I sat- 
isfied my hunger." — {From the diary of a Non-Commis- 
sioned Officer, O.L.: "L'Allemagne et le Droit des Gens" 
p. I55-) 

"The village of Sensenruth has been taken by assault 
and pillaged. Cigarettes, cream, honey, handkerchiefs, 
stockings. The men plunder and sack the houses one by 
one. At the house of the schoolmaster the cellar has been 
emptied, red wine, champagne." — {From the diary of the 

N on-Commissioned Officer Sch VIII Reserve Corps, 

6gth Infantry Regiment: "L'Allemagne et le Droit des 
Gens," p. 161.) 

"Incendiary bombs were thrown into the houses. In the 
evening military choral service: 'Nun danket alle Gott' 

{Now thank we all our God)." — {From the diary of Mer- 
its Crosse, lyyth Infantry: Bedier, "Les Crimes Allemands 
d'apres des temoignages allemands," p. 28,) 

"The inhabitants fled through the village. It was 
horrible. Blood was plastered on all the houses, and as for 
the faces of the dead, they were hideous. They were all 
buried at once, to the number of sixty. Among them many 
old men and women, and one woman about to be delivered. 
It was a ghastly sight. There were three children who had 
huddled close to one another and had died together. The 
altar and the ceiling of the church had fallen in. They had 
been telephoning to the enemy. And this morning, Sep- 
tember 2, all the survivors were driven out, and I saw 
four little boys carrying on two poles a cradle in which was 
a child of five to six months old. All this was horrible to 



P?HE TESTIMONY OF GERMAN SOLDIERS 183 

see. A blow for a blow. Thunder for thunder. Every- 
thing was pillaged. And I also saw a mother with her two 
little ones : and one had a large wound in the head, and 
had lost an eye." — (From the diary of P. Spielmann, Ersats 
Battalion, ist Guard Infantry Brigade. The reference is 
to a massacre of people in a village near Blamont on Sep- 
tember I, 19 14: ''Les Crimes Allemands d'apres des te- 
moignages allemands," pp. 7-8.) 

"In this way we destroyed eight houses with their in- 
mates. In one of them two men with their wives and a girl 
of eighteen were bayoneted. The little one almost un- 
nerved me, so innocent was her expression. But it was 
impossible to check the crowd, so excited were they, for in 
such moments you are no longer men but wild beasts." — 
{Unsigned diary: "Lcs Crimes Allemands d'apres des te- 
moignages allemands," p. 17.) 

"This way of making war is absolutely barbarous. I am 
astonished that we could make any complaint of the con- 
duct of the Russians, for we conduct ourselves in France in 
a much worse fashion; and on every occasion and on the 
smallest pretext we have burnt and plundered. But God 
is just and sees everything. His mills -grind slowly, but 
they grind exceeding small." — {From the diary of Non- 
commissioned Officer X. of the 46th Regiment of Infantry, 
^th Reserve Corps: Bedier, ''Comment I'Allemagne essaie 
de justifier ses crimes," p. 46.) 

"When the offensive becomes difficult, we gather to- 
gether the Russian prisoners and hunt them before us 
towards their compatriots, while we attack the latter at the 
same time. In this way our losses are sensibly diminished. 
We cannot but make prisoners. Each Russian soldier when 
made prisoner will now be sent in front of our lines, in 
order to be shot by his fellows." — {Extract from the diary 
of a German Soldier forwarded by the Extraordinary Com- 
mission of Inquiry instituted by the Russian Government: 
"German Atrocities," by J. H. Morgan, p. 98.) 



184 JHE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

"December 19, 1914: The sight of the trenches and the 
fury, not to say bestiality, of our men in beating to death 
the wounded EngHsh affected me so much that, for the 
rest of the day, I was fit for nothing." — (Extract from 
a diary of a German Soldier of the i^th Regiment, iT^th 
Division, Vllth Corps, captured by the Fifth {French) 
Army, and reproduced in the First {British) Army Sum- 
mary, No. 95: Ihid., p. 99.) 

(After promising to send a ring made out of a shell.) 
"It will be a nice souvenir for you from a German warrior, 
who has been through everything from the start and has 
shot and bayoneted so many Frenchmen, and I have bay- 
oneted many women. During the fight at Batonville [ ?Ba- 
donviller] I bayoneted seven (7) women and four (4) 
young girls in five ( 5 ) minutes. We fought from house to 
house and these women fired on us with revolvers; they 
also fired on the captain too, then he told me to shoot them 
all — but I bayoneted them and did not shoot them, this 
herd of sows, they are worse than the men." — {Contents of 
a letter found on a prisoner of the S6th Regiment, but writ- 
ten by Johann Wenger, loth Company Body Regiment, 1st 
Brigade, 1st Division I.A.C. Bav., dated 16th March, 191 5, 
Peronne, and addressed to a German girl: Ibid., p. 99.) 

"Here, also, things take place which ought not to be ; yes, 
atrocities are committed here also, but naturally on the 
English and Belgians; all are shot down without mercy." 
{Extract from the diary of a German Soldier, Richard Ger- 
hold: Ibid., p. 103.) 

"The Bavarians make hardly any prisoners; they kill 
those they capture with their knives." — {Letter found on a 
German Soldier in Poland.) 

Professor Bedier ^ gives three facsimiles of portions of 
an article by Non-Commissioned Officer Klemt, published 
in the Jauersches Tageblatt, October 18, 191 4, entitled 

^ Les Crimes Allemands d'apres des temoignages allemands, 
P- 34. 



THE TESTIMONY OF GERMAN SOLDIERS 185 

"A Day of Honour for our Regiment, 24th September 
1914." He describes how on that date his force left Han^ 
nonville in the morning, and, supported on the march by 
Austrian batteries, was suddenly received by a double fire 
from artillery and infantry. The losses were enormous. 
And yet the enemy was invisible. At last, however, it was 
seen that the firing came from above, from trees where 
French soldiers were posted. From now on I shall no 
longer summarise but quote. 

"We brought them down like squirrels, and gave them a 
warm reception, with blows of the butt and the bayonet: 
they no longer need doctors: we are no longer fighting 
loyal enemies but treacherous brigands. 

"By leaps and bounds we got across the clearing. They 
were here, there and everywhere hidden in the thicket. 
Now it is down with the enemy ! And we will give them 
no quarter. Every one shoots standing, a few, a very few, 
fire kneeling. No one tries to take shelter. We reach a 
little depression in the ground : here the red trousers dead 
or wounded lie in a heap on the ground. We knock down 
or bayonet the wounded, for we know that those scoundrels 
fire at our backs when we have gone by. There was a 
Frenchman there stretched out, full length, face down, pre- 
tending to be dead. A kick from a strong fusilier soon 
taught him that we were there. Turning round, he asked 
for quarter, but we answered : Ts that the way your tools 

work, you ' and he was nailed to the ground. Close to 

me I heard odd, cracking sounds. They were blows from 
a gun on the bald head of a Frenchman which a private 
of the I5i4th was dealing out vigorously; he was wisely 
using a French gun so as not to break his own. Tender- 
hearted souls are so kind to the French wounded that they 
finish them with a bullet, but others give them as many 
thrusts and blows as they can. 

"Our adversaries had fought bravely. . . . But whether 
wounded slightly or severely, the brave fusiliers spare their 
country the cost of caring for many enemies." 

"In some cases without any military necessity, or any 



186 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

pretence that a crime had been committed, whole popula- 
tions have been dispersed by superior orders as in the 
ancient days of slavery, and the men have been carried 
away to a distance and the women have been left on the 
spot or removed elsewhere. Thus, at Valenciennes, as we 

learn from the diary of a soldier, Heinrich B on the 

26th of September 1914, all the male inhabitants between 
eighteen and forty-eight were arrested and sent to Ger- 
many. And in the diary of another soldier, Conrad B , 

with reference to the same event it is stated that 'we had to 
turn the civilians out of their houses and conduct them to 
the station.' " 1 

''Order passed to shoot all the male inhabitants ... a 
frightful Sunday." ^ 

"In the diary of a German officer which came into my 
possession an entry recording the undiscriminating butchery 
of some two hundred civilians concluded with the otiose 
remark : 'In future there ought to be an inquiry into their 
guilt instead of shooting them.' " ^ 

"We were passing through an industrial district of the 
Walloon country. A young woman, or rather a little girl, 
greeted us with a long nose. A lieutenant had her seized, 
drew his sword and cut off her wrist. 'Thus.' said he, 'will 
everybody be punished who dares to insult the German 
flag.' ... 

"I had been, until then, a good German; after this, I 
recognised that this was not the race to which I belonged, 
and I took an oath to escape as soon as I could from the 
humiliation of being with such brutes." ^ 

^ L'AUemagne et le Droit dcs Gens, pp. 150-1. The deporta- 
tions which have been carried ovit so extensively during the last 
few months had already begun at this early date. (See above, 
p. 150.) 

" From a German soldier's diary. See Professor Morgan, Ger^ 
man Atrocities, p. 22. 

^Ibid., p. 21. 

* Statement made by a German deserter, the son of a German 
engineer and a Polish lady, and formerly an officer in the 
Reserve; published in The Temps, July 18, 1915. (See 
below, p. 246.) 



THE TESTIMONY OF GERMAN SOLDIERS 187 

"In an encampment of prisoners in France," writes the 
Spanish Count Melgar, to the Matin of the 3rd January, 
19 1 6, "I had occasion to read a number of diaries found on 
German soldiers. There I found a complete confirmation 
of their Emperor's orders : ^ 'To-day we have shot forty 
men at H. ; to-day we have burnt, with petroleum, all the 
houses at L. together with their inmates !' It is superfluous 
to add that I have seen with my own eyes hundreds of 
mutilated Belgians and that I have gathered from the lips 
of nuns and priests, of unimpeachable character, facts of 
appalling horror." 

There are no doubt thousands of crimes which have not 
come to the notice of various committees, but which are 
none the less authentic, as, for instance, the case of the 
little boy of seven who was shot dead at Senlis by a German 
soldier, at whom he had playfully pointed his toy gun.^ 

* Alluding to a letter which Count Melgar alleges the Kaiser 
addressed to the Emperor Francis Joseph saying: "My heart 
bursts with grief at such a thought, but it is absolutely neces- 
sary to put everything to fire and sword; to slaughter men and 
women, the aged as well as children, and not to leave a single 
tree standing or a single roof intact. If we adopt this regime 
of terror — the only one which befits a vile people like the 
French — it is certain that the war will be over within two months, 
while, if we show respect for the principles of humanity, it might 
continue for several years. I shall, therefore, have recourse 
to this method, which in spite of appearance, will save blood- 
shed." . . . 

"This incident was pathetically described in the following 
lines by the French poet, Miguel Zamacois : — 

"C'est un petit garqon. . . . C'est un petit bonhomme 
Heureux de rien . . . de tout . . . d'un baton, d'une pomme. 
II a des yeux rieurs, des cheveux en criniere: 
II est fier, car depuis la semaine derniere 
II sait sifler entre ses dents ! 

"Nous le connaissons bien. II meprise les 'fiUes'; 
Sa poche n'en pent plus de ficelle et de billes; 

De tout un baggage enfantin; 
II montre quatre sous qu'il croit etre une somme; 
Rit du matin au soir, et ne fait qu'un grand somme 

Depuis le soir jusqu'au matin. 



188 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

Or that of the EngHsh schoolboy, who took a kodak picture 
of some German soldiers near the station at Brussels. The 
gentleman, in whose charge he was, was summoned from 
inside the station, and the boy shot dead in his presence. 

"A traitor has just been shot, a little French lad (ein 
Fransosling) belonging to one of those gymnastic societies 
which wear tricolour ribbons {i.e. the Eclaireurs, or Boy 
Scouts), a poor young fellow who in his infatuation wanted 
to be a hero. The German column was passing along a 
wooded defile, and he was caught and asked whether the 
French were about. He refused to give information. 

"Des amusements neufs, on n'en invente guere ! 
Etant petit gargon il s'amuse a la guerre 

Comme tous les petits garqons ! 
II s'amuse d'instinct a defendre sa terre, 
Et partage deja la haine hereditaire 

Pour ceux-la que nous maudissons. 

"Or voici qu'un matin, a travers le village, 
Passent les ennemis, avec tout I'etalage 

De leurs precedes revoltants. 
On se bat? C'est I'assaut du droit contre la ruse? 
Bah! Est-ce une raison pour ne plus que s'amuse 

Un petit gargon de sept ans? 

"Et parce qu'il faut bien a sept ans que Ton joue, 
Du cote des soldats le petit met en joue 

Son fusil de bois mena(;ant. . . . 
Un Frangais eut souri du geste minuscule 
Et peut-etre singe I'ennemi qui recule 

Pour amuser cet innocent. 

"Pour montrer que vous etiez forts 
Vous avez dirige contre I'arme enfantine, 
Qu'il allait deposer pour prendre sa tartine, 
Les vrais fusils qui font des morts! 
* * * * 

"S'il est vrai, Majeste, ce crime qu'on raconte, 
Comme il pesera lourd le matin du grand compte, 

Pour le debiteur aux abois ! 
Comme il pesera lourd lorsque dans le silence 
Une main posera I'enfant sur la balance 

Et son petit fusil de bois." 



THE TESTIMONY OF GERMAN SOLDIERS 189 

Fifty yards further on there was fire from the cover of a 
wood. The prisoner was asked in French if he had known 
that the enemy was in the forest and did not deny it. 
He went with firm step to a telegraph post and stood up 
against it, with the green vineyard at his back, and received 
the volley of the firing party with a proud smile on his face. 
Infatuated wretch! It was a pity to see such wasted cour- 
age. ^ 

"Bold Exploit of Two Dragoons from Duisherg. — 'A 
patrol of German dragoons, entering a village incautiously, 
were surprised to find it occupied by the French. The ma- 
jority escaped, but the two leading men were surrounded by 
eight French infantry soldiers. They pretended to surren- 
der {sie ergaben sich anscheinend) , but when a French ser- 
geant came forward to receive their carbines, one of the 
dragoons, purporting to hand over his weapon, shot the 
man through the head and then galloped off with his com- 
rade. The other seven Frenchmen, who had grounded their 
rifles and were quite off their guard, failed to hit them as 
they rode ofT.' This is called ein kilhnes Reiterstuckchen, 
and spoken of as a gallant stratagem." ^ 

This is what Mr. Powell, a well-known American author 
and journalist, saw : — 

*Tn many parts of the world I have seen many terrible 
and revolting things, but nothing so ghastly, so horrifying 
as Aerschot. Quite two-thirds of the houses had been 
burned, and showed unmistakable signs of having been 
sacked by a brutal soldiery before they were burned. 

^'Everywhere were the ghastly evidences. Doors had 
been smashed in with rifle-butts and boot-heels; windows 
had been broken; pictures had been torn from the walls; 
mattresses had been ripped open with bayonets in search 
of valuables; drawers had been emptied upon the floors; 
the outer walls of the houses were spattered with blood 
and pock-marked with bullets; the side-walks were slippery 

* Quoted by Sir Theodore Andrea Cook in Kaiser, Krupp and 
Kultur, from Kriegs-Chronik, a German publication consisting 
partly of soldiers' letters from the Front. 



190 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

with broken bottles; the streets were strewn with women's 
clothing. 

"It needed no one to tell us of that orgy of blood and 
lust. The story was so plainly written that any one could 
read ifc. . . . 

"Piecing together the stories told us by those who did 
survive that night of horror, we know that scores of towns- 
people were shot down in cold blood; and that, when the 
firing squads could not do the slaughter fast enough, the 
victims were lined up and a machine-gun was turned upon 
them. 

"We know that young girls were dragged from their homes 
and stripped naked and violated by the soldiers — many 
soldiers — in the public square in the presence of officers. 

"We know that both men and women were unspeakably 
mutilated, that children were bayoneted, that dwellings 
were ransacked and looted, and that finally, as though to 
destroy the evidence of their horrid work, soldiers went 
from house to house with torches, methodically setting fire 
to them. . . . 

"In comparison to its size, the Germans had wrought 
more widespread destruction in Louvain than did the earth- 
quake and fire combined in San Francisco. 

"The looting had evidently been unrestrained. The 
roads for miles in either direction were littered with furni- 
ture and bedding and clothing. Such articles as the sol- 
diers could not carry away they wantonly destroyed. Hang- 
ings had been torn down, pictures on the walls had been 
smashed, the contents of drawers and trunks had been 
emptied into the streets, literally everything breakable had 
been broken. This is not from hearsay, remember; / saw 
it with my own eyes. And the amazing feature of it all 
was, that among the Germans there seemed to be no feeling 
of regret, no sense of shame. Officers in immaculate uni- 
forms strolled about among the ruins, chatting and laugh- 
ing and smoking. ... 

"Several American correspondents, among them Mr. 
Richard Harding Davis, who were being taken by train 
from Brussels to Germany, and who were held for some 



THE TESTIMONY OF GERMAN SOLDIERS 191 

hours in the station at Louvain during the first night's 
massacre, have vividly described the horrors which they 
witnessed from their car window. On the second day Mr. 
Hugh S. Gibson, Secretary of the American Legation in 
Brussels, accompanied by the Swedish and Mexican charges, 
drove over to Louvain in a taxicab. Mr. Gibson told me 
that the Germans had dragged chairs and a dining-table 
from a near-by house into the middle of the square in 
front of the station and that some officers, already consid- 
erably the worse for drink, insisted that the three diplo- 
matists join them in a bottle of wine. And this while the 
city was burning and rifles were cracking, and the dead 
bodies of men and women lay sprawled in the streets !" ^ 

"Mr. Powell had an interview with the commanding 
General, von Boehn, which, as Dr. Prince says, is destined 
to become classic. 

"It had been sought by the General, who had expressed 
a wish to have an opportunity to talk with Mr. Powell, 
to give him the German version of the treatment of the 
Belgian civil population for the enlightenment of the Amer- 
ican public. Mr. Powell was accordingly invited to dine 
with the General. Here is more of the conversation as 
given by the former as 'nearly verbatim' as he could re- 
member it. 

" 'But why wreak your vengeance on women and chil- 
dren?' I asked. 

" 'None have been killed,' the General asserted posi- 
tively. 

" 'I am sorry to contradict you. General,' I asserted, 
with equal positiveness, 'but I have myself seen their 
bodies. So has Mr. Gibson, the Secretary of the American 

* "Whatever explanation may be put forward in the future con- 
cerning Aerschot or Vise or Louvain or Termonde, it will not 
be possible to deny the brutal fact that to avenge the murder real 
or pretended, of a single officer or of a small group of men, Ger- 
man generals, of the twentieth century, did not hesitate to order 
systematic massacres and devastations such as one thought had 
been abolished for ever from the range of human possibility." — 
L'Allemagne et le Droit des Gens, p. 222. 



192 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

Legation in Brussels, who was present during the destruc- 
tion of Louvain.' 

" 'Of course/ replied General von Boehn, 'there is always 
danger of women and children being killed during street 
fighting if they insist on coming into the streets. It is 
unfortunate, but it is war!' 

" 'But how about a woman's body I saw with the hands 
and feet cut off? How about the white-haired man and his 
son whom I helped to bury outside of Sempst, who had 
been killed merely because a retreating Belgian soldier had 
shot a German soldier outside their house? 

" 'There were twenty-two bayonet wounds in the old 
man's face. I counted them. How about the little girl, 
two years old, who was shot while in her mother's arms by 
an Uhlan, and whose funeral I attended at Heyst-op-den- 
Berg? How about the old man near Vilvorde, who was 
hung by his hands from the rafters of his house and roasted 
to death by a bonfire being built under him? 

" 'The General seemed taken aback by the exactness of 
my information.' 

"I have not space to quote further . . . but I hope all 
Americans who may read this will remember that the 
evidence given above is that of Americans, of 'neutrals,' 
not of French, or Belgians, or British, or Russians. I 
would ask them to read also the description of his own 
mental attitude given by Mr. Powell. 

" 'An American, I went to Belgium at the beginning of 
the war with an open mind. I had few, if any, prejudices. 
I knew the English, the French, the Belgians, the Germans 
equally well. I had friends in all four countries and many 
happy recollections of days I had spent in each. When 
I left Antwerp, after the German occupation, I was as pro- 
Belgian as though I had been bom under the red-black- 
and-yellow banner. I had seen a country, one of the love- 
liest and most peaceable in Europe, invaded by a ruth- 
less and brutal soldiery; I had seen its towns and cities 
blackened by fire and broken by shell; I had seen its 
churches and its historic monuments destroyed; I had seen 
its highways crowded with hunted, homeless fugitives; 



THE TESTIMONY OF GERMAN SOLDIERS 193 

I had seen its fertile fields strewn with the corpses of what 
had once been the manhood of the nation; I had seen its 
women left husbandless and its children fatherless; I had 
seen what was once a garden of the Lord turned into a 
land of desolation; and I had seen its people — a people 
whom I, like the rest of the world, had always thought of as 
pleasure-loving, inefficient, easy-going — I had seen this peo- 
ple, I say, aroused, resourceful, unafraid, and fighting, 
fighting, fighting. Do you wonder that they captured my 
imagination, that they won my admiration? I am pro- 
Belgian; I admit it frankly. I should be ashamed to be 
anything else.' " ^ 

The French newspapers of July 8, 191 5, gave the fol- 
lowing account of a barbarous act alleged to have been 
committed by the Germans at Peronne. A few days ago 
some shots were fired at the German patrol. The military 
authorities were convinced that these shots were fired from 
a house occupied by a M. Dubecq, a huissier of the courts, 
in the St. Fursy Street. In vain M. Dubecq pointed out 
that the direction of the bullets fired alone showed that this 
was impossible. The German soldiers locked him and his 
daughter inside the house, which they drenched with 
petroleum and burnt to the ground. 

"Then it was," says Major Corbett-Smith, "that our 
men first saw a little of the hideous work of the invaders 
upon the civilian population, and if anything more were 
needed to brace them up to fight to the last man, they had 
it in that brief hour in the recaptured town. . . . Up the 
main street everywhere was horrible evidence that they 
had been at work. Mingled with dead or wounded com- 
batants were bodies of women and children, many terribly 
mutilated, while other women knelt beside them with stone- 
set faces or gasping through hysterical weeping. From 
behind shutters or half -closed doors others looked out, 
blinded with terror. But there was one thing which, 
for the men who saw it, dwarfed all else. Hanging up in 

^A Textbook of the War for Americans, pp. 1 10-15. 



194 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

the open window of a shop, strung from a hook on the 
cross-beam Hke a joint in a butcher's shop, was the body 
of a little girl, five years old, perhaps. Its poor little hands 
had been hacked off, and through the slender body were 
vicious bayonet stabs." ^ 

"One of our officers, a subaltern in the Sappers, heard 
a woman's shrieks in the night coming from behind the 
German trenches near Richebourg TAvoue; when we ad- 
vanced in the morning, and drove the Germans out, a girl 
was found lying naked on the ground, 'pegged out' in the 
form of a crucifix." ^ 

"On the 24th August, 1914, the Germans shot fifteen 
civilians of Gerbeviller, by groups of five, at a place called 
*la Presle,' about a kilometre from Gerbeviller, on the 
Luneville road. 

"Whilst the preparations for the execution were taking 
place, General Clauss, commanding the 6th Regiment of 
Bavarian infantry, remained seated under a large ash-tree, 
near a table on which stood some champagne, about thirty 
metres away from the place of execution: he had given 
orders to fire at the moment when he raised his glass. 

"The order was executed." ^ 

^ The Retreat from Mons, p. 170. 

"Morgan, German Atrocities, p. 63. 

* Testimony of Sister Julie, published in Le Vieux Dieu Alle- 
m<ind (by Flavien Brenier, Paris, 1916), p. 73. 

Compare the above with the account of the tortures inflicted 
on Melchior Nonnenmacher, chief of the insurgent peasants in 
1525, given by Alexander Weill {The Revolt of the Peasants, 
p. 216) — 

"The unfortunate man was chained to an apple-tree, round 
which . . . the Duke ordered bundles of wood to be placed in 
such a way that his friend, the musician, should be nicely and 
slowly roasted. He himself and his generals piled on the first 
logs. . . . On all sides were dying, dead and wounded. ... At 
each groan which escaped the wretched man, the nobles burst 
into a roar of laughter and took a sip of wine. . . . The agony 
of the unhappy Nonnenmacher lasted for a whole hour. When 
he finally fell backwards, motionless, his fellow-prisoners mur- 
mured a prayer in a low voice whilst the conquerors broke into 
a coarse song." 



THE TESTIMONY OF GERMAN SOLDIERS 195 

A writer in the Petit Parisien, M. de Smit, guarantees 
the truth of the following story, which was told him by a 
near relation of the person whom it concerns. The scene 
was apparently a farm in a Belgian village. One day, four 
German officers entered the courtyard and asked for some- 
thing to eat and drink. The farmer's wife did her best 
to please them, and after supplying their wants walked into 
the garden, leaving her husband with them. Shortly after- 
wards, they followed her there, and one of them asked her 
in French what they owed her. "Nothing," she said. 
"Thank-you," said another officer, with a chuckle, "but 
we wanted to leave a little souvenir at the house." "Yes," 
remarked the others, and they left the garden together. 
The woman then returned to the house, where she found 
her husband decapitated and his head lying on a plate. 

In the "Journal d'un Grand Blesse," published in the 
Correspondant, by M. Ch. Hennevois, the writer states that 
he lay half hidden on the ground and saw German patrols 
go up to men, wounded like himself, who were crying for 
water, and kill them with their bayonets and with the 
butt-end of their rifles, and then strip and plunder the 
bodies. 

The following incident is quoted by the Gaulois, in its 
issue of September 30, from the Russkoye Slovo — 

"During an engagement at the hamlet Esserlicheck, N.-E. 
of Vilkomir, half a Russian company with their officers, 
Lieuts. Baljen, Moits and Kister, were taken prisoners by 
the Germans. All the men were put to death by the enemy 
after they had been subjected to horrible torture. The 
tongues of some of them were torn out and their bodies 
pierced again and again with bayonets; two were thrown 
into a pond. Lieut. Kister, already wounded in the neck, 
received a number of bayonet thrusts, the last of which 
tore out his eyes and penetrated his skull. Lieut, Baljen 
was buried alive." 

The Novoye Vremja describes the horrible torture in- 
flicted on a Cossack who was taken prisoner by the Germans 



196 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

and afterwards escaped. He stated that his ears were cut 
off, and strips of skin peeled off his thighs so as to corre- 
spond to the stripes worn by the Cossacks on their trousers. 

His evidence was taken before several superior Russian 
officers and an American colonel. 

According to the Echo de Paris, evidence was given be- 
fore the Commission at Petrograd appointed to report on 
atrocities committed in Russia by Germans, to the effect 
that 800 Russian prisoners were buried alive in Galicia. 

Eight English prisoners were condemned to twelve 
months' hard labour for refusing to work on the construc- 
tion of a Zeppelin : that is, for refusing to assist in the mur- 
der of their wives and children. 

"At Douai," states Major Vandaleur, who was made 
prisoner October 13, 1914, "I was subjected to continual 
abuse and revilement. . . . No food was given, no straw. 
. . . On October 17. . . we were all marched off to the 
railway station, being reviled at and cursed all the way 
by German officers as well as German soldiers. One of 
our officers was spat on by a German officer. . . . We were 
driven into closed-in wagons from which horses had just 
been removed, fifty-two men being crowded into the one 
in which the other four officers and myself were. So tight 
were we packed that there was only room for some of us 
to sit down on the floor. This floor was covered fully three 
inches deep in fresh manure. ... At Mons I was pulled 
out in front of the wagon by the order of the officer in 
charge of the station, and after cursing me in filthy lan- 
guage ... he ordered one of his soldiers to kick me back 
into the wagon, which he did" [Major Vandaleur was 
wounded]. . . , "One of these wagons is considered to be 
able to accommodate six horses or forty men, and this 
only with the doors open to admit of ventilation." In this 
wagon they were seventy-two hours. ^ 

* Report of Major Vandaleur, quoted by H. W. Wilson in the 
National Review, January, 1917. 

Still more loathsome things of a similar nature — too loath- 
some, indeed, to be repeated here — are recorded in the Belgian 
Official Reports. 



THE TESTIMONY OF GERMAN SOLDIERS 197 

In an article of twenty-four pages in the Revue des Deux 
Mondes, a resume is given of a volume published by M. 
Rezanof, describing the abominable ill-treatment to which 
Russian residents and tourists in Germany were exposed, 
when the war broke out. The accounts are, in all cases, 
based on evidence collected by the Russian Minister for 
Foreign Affairs. Many persons are stated to have lost 
their reason in consequence of the brutalities to which they 
were exposed. Of some it has been impossible to obtain 
any trace. Others were shot as spies at the frontier sta- 
tions; women and girl fugitives were stripped absolutely 
naked in public, and kept standing for an hour in that 
condition, on the pretence that it was necessary to examine 
their clothes. In one instance, the father of two girls, who, 
beside himself at the indignity offered to his daughters, 
struck one of the officials, was immediately shot by order 
of a colonel. 

"While a number of wounded were being attended to in 
a hospital at Gomery, a patrol of the 47th German Infantry 
appeared, and began a general massacre of the wounded 
and medical staff. Assistant-Surgeon Vaissiere was mor- 
tally wounded; the hospital full of wounded was deliber- 
ately set on fire; Stretcher-bearer Gresse was shot; and in 
all about 400 wounded Belgian soldiers were killed or burnt 
to death. Statements regarding this affair have been 
made by the Chief Surgeon Simonin and six stretcher- 
bearers." ^ 

The Petrograd Red Cross Society publishes a list of forty- 
six Sisters of Charity killed by Austro-German guns which 
directed their fire upon Russian ambulances and hospitals. 

The Russian Red Cross Hospital Ship, Portugal, was de- 
liberately sunk in the Black Sea by the enemy on March 
30, with 115 persons attached to the Red Cross, The 
enemy had been officially informed of its name, and the 
ship bore all the signs required by Article V of the Hague 
Convention of 1907. 

^ The National Review, January, 191 7. 

Several of the statements alluded to are printed in Bland, 
Germany's Violations of the Lams of War, p. 53. 



198 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

On the 1st of February, 191 5, the English Hospital Ship 
Asturias, was attacked by a German warship. In Novem- 
ber, 1 91 6, the Britannic and the Braemar Castle, both hos- 
pital ships, were torpedoed, the former in the Mediterra- 
nean, and the latter in the ^gean Sea. 

Towards the end of March 19 17, a second attempt on 
the Asfurias succeeded. She was sunk without warning, 
"while steaming with all navigating lights and with all the 
proper Red Cross signs brilliantly illuminated." Shortly 
after, the hospital ship Gloiicester Castle was sunk. 

On April 17 two others, the Donegal and the Lanfranc, 
were torpedoed. The latter carried 234 British wounded, 
167 German wounded and a medical personnel of 52. Brit- 
ish patrol vessels, at the risk of being torpedoed, rescued 
152 German wounded. One of these ships was not dis- 
tinguished as a hospital ship, and for a significant reason : 
— "Owing to the German practice of sinking hospital 
ships at sight, and to the fact that distinctive marking and 
lighting of such vessels render them more conspicuous 
targets for German submarines, it has become no longer 
possible to distinguish our hospital ships in the customary 
manner." ^ 

It has been alleged, in palliation of some of these atroci- 
ties, that the soldiers were drunk when they committed 
them or that there was provocation. Here are instances 
of "provocation" : — 

"Just before we got to Malines," says a witness, who 
had fallen temporarily into the hands of the Germans, "on 
August 5, I saw a woman with a child in her arms stand- 
ing on the side of the road, on my left hand, watching the 
soldiers go by. Her name was G , aged about sixty- 
three and a neighbour of mine. The officer asked the 
woman for some water in good French. She went Inside 
her son's cottage to get some and brought it immediately. 
The officer went into the cottage garden and drank the 
water. The woman then remarked to the prisoners, 
Tnstead of being given water they deserve to be shot.* 

^ Announcement of the Secretary of the Admiralty, The Times, 
April 23, 1917. 



THE TESTIMONY OF GERMAN SOLDIERS 199 

The officer shouted to us to march on. We went on, and 
immediately I saw the officer draw his revolver and shoot 
the woman and child. One shot killed both." ^ 

"About three hours out of Malines we were taken pris- 
oners by a German patrol and marched into a little wood, 
where there was a house. . . . The officer knocked at the 
door, but the peasant did not come. He then ordered the 
soldiers to break down the door, which two of them did. 
The officer said he [the peasant] did not come quickly 
enough. . . . His hands were tied behind his back, and he 
was shot at once without a moment's delay. The wife 
came out with a little sucking child. She put the child 
down and sprang at the Germans ; like a lioness she clawed 
their faces. One of the Germans took a revolver and 
struck her a tremendous blow with the butt-end on her 
head. Another took his bayonet, fixed it, and thrust it 
through the child; he then put his rifle on his shoulder 
with the child upon it; its little arms stretched out once 
or twice. The officer ordered the house to be set on fire, 
and straw was obtained and it was done. The man and 
his wife and child were thrown on to the top of the straw. 
There were about forty other peasant prisoners there, and 
the officer said, T am doing this as a lesson and example 
to you; when a German tells you to do something next 
time you must move more quickly.' The regiment of Ger- 
mans was a regiment of Cuirassiers, with cross-bones and 
the death's head on the cap." ^ 

* Report of Lord Bryce's Committee, pp. 50-1. , 



VIII 

A GERMAN DEFENCE 

The German Government has published a White Book 
of many pages in reply to the atrocities which have been 
laid to their charge in Belgium and, in the words of Pro- 
fessor Morgan, "no more damning and incriminating evi- 
dence has ever been put forth by a nation arraigned at the 
bar of public opinion." ^ 

An attempt is made in it to justify rather than to deny 
the horrors perpetrated by the German army in Belgium, 
and to this end the Belgian civilians are themselves accused 
of having committed atrocities on the troops in occupation 
of the country. With a view to discover evidence confirm- 
ing these charges, an inquiry was held by certain officers 
of the German army, the witnesses consisting of persons 
under their authority. That is to say, the inquiry was con- 
ducted by those who had to justify the orders which they 
gave to these witnesses, who were bound by military dis- 
cipline to carry them out. The evidence in most cases is 
based on hearsay, and this even where the pretended 
eye-witnesses themselves could have been called upon to 
make direct statements; moreover the statements would 
not bear any sort of cross-examination in a court of 
justice. 

The German Defence has been commented upon by a 
neutral. Professor Struycken of the Faculty of Law at the 
University of Amsterdam, who describes it as a "collection 
of evidence, mostly on oath, which is intended to prove 
that the numerous executions, burnings and acts of devas- 

* German Atrocities, p. 5. 

200 



A GERMAN DEFENCE 201 

tation carried out by the German troops in Belgium were 
a Kriegsnotwendigkeit ('necessity of war') in view of the 
treacherous and criminal behaviour of the civil population." 
"One would gladly," he adds, "have had the direct evi- 
dence of many of the soldiers concerned, which, being that 
of eye-witnesses, would have had the greatest importance — 
but their evidence is not found in the White Book, The 
possibility of guilt on the part of the civilian population is 
certainly not excluded, but the fact that the military au- 
thorities in Berlin are satisfied with this method of inves- 
tigation, and apparently regard the evidence now published 
as satisfactory, makes us shudder at the thought of the 
evidence on which, in the confusion of the fighting, in the 
witches' cauldron of Dinant, in burning Aerschot, and in 
so many other places in unhappy Belgium, sentence of death 
was carried out on thousands of citizens by officers and 
by soldiers of lower rank. 

"Man hat geschossen ('There has been firing') was the 
ordinary signal for death and destruction. . . . 

"It has, on many previous occasions in the course of 
the war, been noticeable that the Germans have apparently 
formed a low estimate of the insight and critical judgment 
of the neutrals whom they seek to convince of the justice 
of their cause. The German White Book furnishes a fresh 
instance of this. If neutrals are to be convinced that the 
extreme severities carried out against the population in 
Belgium were justified, it will be necessary for much clearer 
evidence to be brought forward than that contained in this 
book. We are anxious to receive enlightenment as to the 
events which have occurred, and do not wish to found our 
judgment solely on Belgian, French and English reports, 
into which exaggerations may easily have found their way ; 
but desire that the Germans, too, may bring forward evi- 
dence which will stand the test of criticism, and will in fact 
prove that which it is desired to prove, instead of proving 
the exact opposite." 

The accusations are, as a rule, made in general terms, 
and atrocities committed by the Germans themselves are 
described as necessary reprisals. It is admitted "that 



202 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

hostages were shot at various places," and this procedure 
is said to have been "amply justified!" ^ 

The indiscriminate shooting of civilians, including priests, 
is also admitted. One instance of the style of evidence 
contained in this Defence is sufficient. A German stafif- 
surgeon says : "On the bank of the Meuse, between the 
river and the garden wall . . . lay a heap of civilians who 
had been shot. ... I estimate about thirty or forty. . . . 
I have heard that the Grenadier Regiment No. loi carried 
out the execution. Among the people who were shot were 
some women, but by far the greater number were young 
lads. Under the heap I discovered a girl of about five 
years of age, alive and without any injuries. I took her 
out and brought her down to the house where the women 
were. She took chocolate, was quite happy, and was clearly 
unaware of the seriousness of the situation. I then searched 
the heap of bodies to see whether any other child were 
underneath, but we only found one girl of about ten years 
of age, who had a wound in the lower part of the thigh. 
I had the wound dressed, and brought her at once to the 
women. . . . Mother and daughter were very thankful 
to me." 2 

The Belgian Government has itself published a lengthy 
reply to the German Defence, from a resume of which, 
published in English under the title of Tr%th and Travesty, 
we append the following extracts : — 

"As to looting, it is sufficient that there was a leader 
present, officer or non-commissioned officer, for it to be 
lawful. Looting is then called 'requisition.' Looting by 
single individuals is alone considered blameworthy. More- 
over, it was with a total absence of shame that most of 
those who made this confession acknowledged the great 
number of occasions of organised looting. A typical reply 
was given by the men of the reserve corps. 

"Questioned as to whether they had witnessed or taken 
part in looting, a number of them replied with a candour 

^Appendix C, German White Book. 

^ The incident is apparently recounted by way of illustrating 
the tender solicitude of the German officer. 



A GERMAN DEFENCE 203 

that disarmed criticism : 'There was no chance ; the first 
line troops had been there' ; or, 'Everything had been 
cleared, and we had searched in vain through the houses, 
the doors of which had been forced open; there was nothing 
left to take.' 

"The conclusions of Lieutenant Loustalot, as to the re- 
sponsibility of the German command for the sack and mas- 
sacre of Dinant, are confirmed up to the hilt by the deposi- 
tions taken. 'We went there as if going to drill, com- 
manded and led by our officers and non-commissioned of- 
ficers/ said a witness from the io8th Foot. This state- 
ment, which is not the only one of its kind, accurately sums 
up the whole story." ^ 

"Such is the German White Book," writes Professor 
Morgan. "I think it is not too much to say that it bears 
the stamp of the forger's hand upon it, the same hand that 
forged the Ems telegram and garbled the Belgian docu- 
ments captured in Brussels. It was conceived in iniquity 
and brought forth in falsehood. It confesses but does not 
avoid." Let the reader study it. He will come to no other 
conclusion. He will see that it is nothing but an attempt 
to prove that black is white and white is black, and that 
the crime is only aggravated by the vain efifort to justify 
it. "The huge fact of the crushing of Belgium submerges 
all details. Our thought is expressed in these words of 
Emerson: 'What you are speaks so loudly we cannot hear 
what you say.' " ^ 

Times without number proposals have been made to the 
German commanders in Belgium by eminent persons, in- 
cluding Cardinal Mercier and the Belgian Bishops, that a 
neutral commission should be appointed to inquire into the 
atrocities committed by the German troops and the truth 
of their defence, but no reply even has ever been vouch- 
safed to these proposals. 

^ Truth and Travesty: an Analytical Study of the Reply of 
the Belgian Government to the German White Book, by Fer- 
nand Passelecq, Director of the Belgian Documentary Bureau, 

PP- 53-5- 

"David Starr Jordan, quoted in A Textbook of the War for 
AfnericofHs, p. 121. 



IX 

MURDER BY LAND AND SEA 

Of all the crimes which Germany has committed since 
the war began none have horrified the world to the same 
degree as the sinking of the Lusitania and the judicial 
murders of Miss Cavell and of Captain Fryatt. The Lusi- 
tania, an unarmed ^ passenger ship, was torpedoed without 
warning by German submarines. The ship sank in twenty 
minutes, and with it 1 198 of the passengers and crew, 
many of them women and hapless little children. This 
cruel, cowardly act was extolled in the German Press: 
"The sinking of the Lusitania is a success for our sub- 
marines which must be placed beside the greatest achieve- 
ment in this naval war. . . . The sinking of the great Brit- 
ish steamer is a success, the moral significance of which 
is still greater than the material success. With joyful pride 
we contemplate the latest deed of our navy, and it will not 
be the last." ^ 

"Whoever cannot prevail upon himself," said Pastor D. 
Baumgarten, in the course of an address on the Sermon 
on the Mount, "to approve from the bottom of his heart 
the sinking of the Lusitania — whoever cannot conquer the 
sense of the gigantic cruelty (ungeheure Grausamkeit) to 
unnumbered perfectly innocent victims . . . and give him- 
self up to honest delight at the victorious exploit of German 
defensive power — ^him we judge to be no German." ^ 

^A German — or pro-German — who swore at an inquiry held 
at New York that the Lusitania was armed, was convicted of 
perjury. 

' Kolnische Zeitung, May 10, 1915; quoted by A. Hurd in 
Murder at Sea, in which the story is eloquently told. 

"Deutsche Reden in schwerer Zeit, No. 24, p. 7. 

204 



MURDER BY LAND AND SEA 205 

Hundreds of congratulatory telegrams were sent to Ad- 
miral von Tirpitz, while in New York, "where riotous 
scenes of jubilation took place among the Germans in Ger- 
man clubs and restaurants . . , many Germans got drunk 
in toasting 'Der Tag.' " ^ 

A medal was struck in Germany to commemorate the 
exploit, and it is stated that the Order of Merit of the First 
Class was bestowed by the Emperor on the Commander of 
the submarine which did the ghastly work. 

The main facts of the murder of Miss Cavell are known 
in most English homes, and abroad, in the friendly coun- 
tries, there can hardly exist a newspaper which has not 
expressed its horror at the crime. 

"The summary execution by a belligerent of an inoffen- 
sive inhabitant affects us more than the death of hundreds 
of soldiers in a regular engagement. The reason of this is, 
that the general principles of humanity, which are the very 
essence of Christianity, have found their most noble expres- 
sion in the laws of chivalry, which is the true moral basis 
of the military traditions of modern Europe. The English, 
French and Spanish — to cite only the three principal mili- 
tary Powers of the Middle Age — have passed down from 
generation to generation this common ideal, which already 
contained in germ the fundamental principles of the inter- 
national law of our days — fidelity to a word once given, 
loyalty in the means of inflicting damage on the enemy, 
respect and protection of the weak." ^ 

"Why has this crime caused such widespread indigna- 
tion?" said M. Painleve, the French Minister for Public 
Instruction, at a mass meeting organised by the Ligue de 
Droits de Londres, on the 28th of November, in honour of 
the memory of Miss Cavell, and in aid of the French Red 
Cross Society. "By what extraordinary circumstance 
has it come about that in the midst of scenes of death 
and desolation, almost too tragic for the imagination to 

^ Murder at Sea, p. 14. 

" L'Allemagne et le Droit des Gens, p. 11. 



206 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

conceive, the love and compassion of all nations have been 
so centred in one individual sufferer. 

"Germany has spread death over the world. She has 
carried her hideous engines of destruction, her scientific 
methods of massacre, from the North Sea to the Vosges, 
and from the Baltic to the Balkans. ... By her deed 
millions of soldiers lie dead, mown down in the flower of 
their youth, and the streets of every large town are full of 
mutilated men. It would seem impossible to single out 
any one in particular for compassion. What, indeed, does 
one murder signify, when murders are committed without 
number; when whole nations, men, women and children, 
are trodden underfoot, torn to pieces, and doomed to ex- 
termination? And yet with the simple story of the putting 
to death of Miss Cavell the whole civilised world has trem- 
bled with indignation and horror. . . . 

"Not until the day when Germany feels within herself 
some shame and remorse for this crime can there possibly 
be peace between her and humanity. Even if violence and 
iniquity should win the victory over justice and right (an 
absurd and inconceivable hypothesis) there is not a man, 
worthy of the name of man, who would not rather perish 
with Miss Cavell than triumph with her assassins!" 

It is just this absence of human qualities, chivalry, 
gratitude, pity, remorse and shame in the commission of 
some of their crimes that has amazed the civilised world. 
Consider the circumstances of Miss Cavell's murder. 
"Miss Cavell," wrote the American Minister to Belgium, 
in his appeal on her behalf to Baron von Bissing, the 
German Governor of Brussels, "is the head of the Brussels 
Surgical Institute. She has spent her life in alleviating 
the sufferings of others, and her school has turned out many 
nurses who have watched by the bedside of the sick all 
the world over, in Germany as in Belgium. At the be- 
ginning of the war Miss Cavell bestowed her care as freely 
on the German soldiers as on others. Even in default of 
all other reasons her career as a servant to humanity is 
such as to inspire the greatest sympathy and to call for 



, MURDER BY LAND AND SEA 207 

pardon. . . ." He appealed in vain to the "feelings of 
humanity and generosity" of this brute in human shape; 
they existed no more in him than in his associate, Baron 
von der Lacken, to whom the Minister wrote : "Stand 
by and save from death this unfortunate woman. Have 
pity on her." She was condemned to death at five o'clock 
in the afternoon of October ii on the charge of assisting 
English and French soldiers to cross the frontier, whereby 
she hoped to save their lives, and shot at two o'clock in 
the night. We need not go into the circumstances of her 
trial ; they have been very carefully set forth by Mr. James 
Beck,^ and the illegality as well as the barbarity of the 
sentence clearly demonstrated. After quoting the law 
which she was alleged to have transgressed, "I affirm," 
he writes, "with confidence, that under this law Miss Cavell 
was innocent, and that the true meaning of the law was 
perverted in order to inflict the death sentence upon her. . . . 
No one suggests that Baron von Bissing had any personal 
feeling against Miss Cavell ; indeed, his conduct would have 
been the more tolerable if it had been actuated by anger. 
He killed her in cold blood and to strengthen the German 
occupation in Belgium. To the Prussian idea, as already 
illustrated by official proclamation, it was a matter of no 
consequence whose life was taken or whose right was in- 
vaded; it served to terrorise the Belgian people." Even 
the final appeal of our Minister for the surrender of her 
mutilated body was denied. For her part she forgave her 
butchers: "I must have no bitterness towards any one," 
were among her last words. 

In discussing the illegal as well as the inhuman character 
of the sentence, we are admitting for a moment that the 
Germans had a right to exercise in Belgium the privileges 
of belligerents in a hostile country. In reality, their 
position in Belgium is nothing better than that of a band 
of brigands who, in order to avoid the resistance which 
they expect to meet if they attempt to enter a house 

^ Edith Cavell, by James Beck, late Assistant Attorney General, 
United States. 



208 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

they intend to plunder by the front door, break their way 
through an adjoining property — ^which they have previously 
sworn to respect — murdering and robbing the owners of 
that property on their way, because they ventured to oppose 
their intrusion. 

Captain Fryatt was the master of the Great Eastern Rail- 
way Company's steamship Brussels, running between Har- 
wich and Rotterdam. He has been described by one who 
knew him intimately as "a perfect type of the British sailor, 
a master of his craft, a devoted husband and father, and 
a man of blameless life." 

In February, 191 5, the German Government published 
their nefarious intention of destroying, on and after the 
1 8th of that month, every enemy merchant vessel found 
in the waters surrounding Great Britain and Ireland, in- 
cluding the English Channel, "without it being always pos- 
sible to warn the crew or passengers." Captain Fryatt was 
aware of this. He was also, no doubt, aware of the fact 
that twenty-two merchant ships had already been sunk with- 
out warning by German submarines since the above-men- 
tioned announcement had been made. When therefore on 
the 28th March his vessel was pursued by one of these sub- 
marines which, according to one account, signalled to him 
to stop, he ordered the engines to be put at full speed, hop- 
ing by this means to ensure the safety of his crew and 
passengers. A few minutes later the submarine dived with 
the intention, no doubt, of torpedoing the Brussels, but it 
is believed that at that moment she was herself rammed by 
that vessel. 

In recognition of his skill and bravery on this occasion 
Captain Fryatt was presented with a gold watch by the 
Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty and another by the 
Great Eastern Railway Company. 

On the 23rd June, 1916, more than a year after the in- 
cident recorded above, the Brussels was captured, while on 
a voyage to Tilbury from the Hook of Holland, by a flotilla 
of German torpedo boats and taken with all on board to 
Zeebrugge; and it was there that the murder took place. 



MURDER BY LAND AND SEA 

Captain Fryatt was shot, after some sort of mock trial, 
for having dared to defend his ship and those on board 
against the attack of the submarine. He had at least the 
comforting thought on the day of his martyrdom that, 
but for his action, those who sailed with him on the i8th 
March might have perished like the victims of the Falaha 
which was sunk on the same date. 

This crime has been spoken of in neutral countries in 
scathing terms, as was foreseen by the German Press itself. 
"It will probably arouse the same storm of indignation 
against German barbarism as was evoked by the Cavell 
case, but that must not disturb us," wrote the Kolnische 
Volksseitung (29th July, 1916). The New York Herald 
described it as the "crowning German atrocity" and the 
New York Times as "a deliberate murder — a trifle to the 
Government that has so many thousands to answer for." 
A Dutch paper wrote : "In the year in which Captain Fryatt 
made the fatal mistake of attempting to save his ship from 
destruction, Germany's licensed submarine assassins tor- 
pedoed and sank forty unarmed British vessels without the 
slightest warning. These adored heroes of the Fatherland 
succeeded in a single year in slaughtering more than 2000 
men, women and children. . . . The cowardly method of 
warfare that has made the German navy distinct from all 
others has been worthily upheld. . . ." It is announced 
that in Holland a subscription has been set on foot for the 
purpose of raising a memorial in honour of the murdered 
man. In our own country a mass meeting, organised by the 
British Workers' National League, protested in the name of 
the people of England against this new crime and expressed 
sympathy with the widow, to whom the following letter 
was written at the King's command — 

"In the sorrow which has so cruelly stricken you the 
King joins with his people in offering you his heartfelt 
sympathy. 

"Since the outbreak of the War, His Majesty has fol- 
lowed with admiration the splendid services of the Mer- 
cantile Marine. 



210 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

"The action of Captain Fryatt in defending his ship 
against the attack of an enemy submarine was a noble 
instance of the resource and self-reliance so characteristic 
of that profession. 

"It is therefore with the feelings of the deepest indigna- 
tion that the King learnt of your husband's fate, and in 
conveying to you the expression of his condolence I am 
commanded to assure you of the abhorrence with which 
His Majesty regards this outrage." 

"The Government are of opinion," said Mr. Asquith in 
the House of Commons, "that this country will not tolerate 
the resumption of diplomatic intercourse with Germany 
after the War until reparation has been made for the mur- 
der of Captain Fryatt and similar outrages. Some of our 
Allies have suffered from brutalities even more gross and 
on a more extended scale." 



X \ 

ATROCITIES IN AFRICA 

The Blue Book relating to "German Atrocities and 
Breaches of the Rules of War in Africa" (June, 1916), 
admits us to another Chamber of Horrors. In this volume 
of eighty-six pages we read of the murder and mutilation 
of the natives — men, women and children — and the destruc- 
tion of their villages; of the firing on medical officers and 
stretcher-bearers, although wearing brassards and waving 
Red Cross flags; of the poisoning of the wells and the use 
of expanding bullets. "On some occasions," wrote Major- 
General Dobell ^ in a despatch to the War Office, "it is said 
that no Europeans were present during the enactment of 
the brutalities described, but sufficient evidence is here avail- 
able to show that German Europeans encouraged such acts 
by personally cutting the throats of wounded British sol- 
diers with knives, firing on peaceful inhabitants to terror- 
ise them, and shooting natives without trial." Major-Gen- 
eral Dobell enclosed a memorandum by Mr. Elphinstone ^ 
in which he says that: "It should be borne in mind that 
the civilians killed by the Germans are the natives of a 
country under their protection, whom they had ruled for 
many years; the murders were not committed by an in- 
vading army. In fact, owing to the treatment meted out, 
it was to the invading army to whom the wretched natives 
fled for protection; they very soon summed up the dif- 
ference of treatment by the German and the Allied 
Forces." 

* Commanding the Allied Forces in the Cameroons. 
''Chief Political Officer with the British Forces in the Came- 
roons. 

211 



212 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

To the German Governor at Jaunde, Major-General 
Dobell wrote as follows: "1 take this opportunity to bring 
to your Excellency's attention the barbarous manner in 
which German troops are carrying on warfare, especially 
in the Edea districts. With regard to this, I enclose a 
report of the cases treated by the French medical au- 
thorities, which removes any doubt as to the facts of the 
case. This report can only contain a small proportion of 
the unspeakable atrocities actually committed by your 
troops, 

"It requires no reference to the Hague Convention to 
point out that the brutalities, which have been committed 
against unarmed non-combatants and innocent women and 
children, are contrary to every principle of civilised war- 
fare and against every dictate of humanity. 

"I am unable to believe that such acts could be per- 
petrated without the sanction of your military authorities, 
and in some cases I have reason to think that Europeans 
were actually present directing operations. 

''In the name of humanity I request your Excellency to 
put an instant stop to such proceedings. Should they con- 
tinue, I shall be obliged to give directions that any Ger- 
man soldier captured and found guilty of taking part in 
these atrocities shall be deemed to have forfeited his right 
to be regarded as a prisoner of war and will be dealt with 
accordingly. 

"I would also draw your Excellency's attention to the 
fact that my subordinate commanders have reported 
cases of natives armed with poisoned arrows fighting in 
your ranks. This is contrary to Article 23 of the Hague 
Convention concerning the Laws and Customs of War on 
Land. 

"I need not point out to your Excellency that, for my 
part, I use the utmost endeavour that the laws and customs 
of war are respected by the troops fighting under my 
command and expect your Excellency to take similar 
measures." 



XI 



THE MURDER OF A NATION : THE EXPLOITS OF GERMANY S 

ALLIES 

The story of murder and plunder is not complete without 
some account of the atrocities committed by the nations 
with whom the Central Powers have allied themselves. 
With their approval nearly the whole of the Armenian 
inhabitants of Turkey have been barbarously butchered, 
and those who have not been killed, or have not succeeded 
in escaping, have been thrown into prison or sold into 
slavery. 

I say, "with their approval," for no one who realises 
how complete an ascendancy the Germans have gained 
over their Turkish Allies since the war began, can suppose 
that they could not at any moment have put an end to the 
massacre of this people, had they wished to do so. One 
word from the Kaiser would have sufficed. Massacres in 
Turkey are not perpetrated by uncontrollable mobs. They 
are organised. The butchery of the Armenians at Adana 
in 1909 began by order from Constantinople and was sud- 
denly stopped by another order from Constantinople, an 
officer riding through the streets and calling out "Paydos!" 
(Cease work!) 

Four hundred years ago, the Turkish Sultan, Selim I, 
was minded to massacre the whole of the Christian popula- 
tion of his dominions, but was dissuaded by his counsellors. 
As the German historian, von Hammer, writes : "Thanks 
to the humanity of the Grand Vizier, Piri Pasha, and the 
Mufti Djemali, Selim did not blacken the last days of his 
reign by a wholesale massacre of the Tnfidels.' " ^ It was 

* Geschichte des Osmawischen Reiches. 

213 



214 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

only when, in the twentieth century, a Sultan was de- 
pendent on the counsels of Christian German advisers, that 
it became possible to carry out Selim's designs, almost to 
the letter. Therefore, this crime also : "A crime," as Lord 
Bryce says, "more hideous than any which have been com- 
mitted since the time of Tamerlane," is at their door. 
Three-quarters or four-fifths of this intelligent nation have 
perished, and the story of the tortures to which they were 
subjected and the manner of their death surpasses anything 
we read even in the accounts of the atrocities in Belgium 
and France and Serbia. 

"The worst and most unimaginable horrors," says one 
of the witnesses, "were reserved for us at the banks of 
the Euphrates and the Erzindjan plain. The mutilated 
bodies of women and girls and little children made every- 
body shudder. . . . Their cries went up to heaven. At 
the Euphrates, the brigands and gendarmes threw into the 
river all the remaining children under fifteen years old. 
Those who could swim were shot down as they struggled 
in the water." 

"In the district of Bitlis," according to information pub- 
lished by the Armenian newspaper Gotchnag, of New York, 
"in one village looo Armenian men, women and children 
were crowded into a wooden house and the house set on 
fire." 

In another large village of the same district only Turkish 
people escaped the massacre. 

In another they roped together men and women by dozens 
and threw them into the Lake of Van. 

A yoimg Armenian, who succeeded in escaping, relates 
that the Ex-Vali (Governor) of Van ordered the massacre 
of all the male inhabitants of Bitlis between the ages of 
fifteen and forty, and the order was carried out. 

According to the Messagiere (August, 191 5), the 
Italian Consul-General at Trebizond, M. Gorrini, stated 
that the orders from Constantinople were peremptory 
and had to be obeyed; of 14,000 Gregorians, Catholics 
and Protestants not more than a hundred were left at the 
time of his departure. Every day, hundreds of dead 



THE MURDER OF A NATION 215 

bodies were to be seen in the streets. Women were out- 
raged ; children were taken from their f amihes and thrown 
into the Black Sea or the rivers. "After witnessing these 
daily scenes for a month," said the Consul, "without being 
able to interfere, one is inclined to ask whether all the can- 
nibals and wild beasts in the world have congregated in 
Stamboul. Such massacres cry out for the vengeance of 
the whole of Christianity. If all I know was known — ^all 
I have heard and seen — the Christian Powers who remain 
neutral would cry anathema and rise against Turkey — 
against this barbarian Government and the savage 'Com- 
mittee of Union and Progress,' and hold responsible the 
Austro-Germans who tolerate or assist in the perpetration 
of crimes unparalleled in modern history." 

"From whatever source it comes," wrote the Gaulois 
(October, 1915), "whether from Constantinople, Smyrna, 
Angora, Van or elsewhere, there is no variation in the 
description of the appalling scenes which have accompanied 
the slaughter of the Armenian population of the Turkish 
Empire since the beginning of the war. The Turks have 
drawn up a plan for the complete extermination of the 
Armenians, and they are carrying it out with a ferocity 
which makes the hair stand on end — with a refinement of 
cruelty of which there are few examples, even in the re- 
motest periods of the history of mankind. They kill, 
massacre, pillage, burn and devastate under the very eyes 
of their German patrons who encourage them in their abom- 
inable work. The number already murdered is appalling. 
The report speaks of 800,000 to 1,000,000. Only those 
who adopt the Mohammedan religion are spared, and even 
they are deported to a great distance from their towns and 
villages, and separated from their wives and children, who 
are forcibly converted to Islam and distributed among the 
Mussulman families! Abdul Hamid was justly called 'the 
Red Sultan.' By what name will the young Turks and 
their so-called Christian Teuton friends and allies be known 
in history?" 

The Temps learns that beyond Or fa and in parts of Meso- 
potamia there is not a single Armenian left. 



216 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

The Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions has issued 
a statement as to the conditions of the deported Armenians 
in northern Arabia and Syria, including the following eye- 
witness's report from a missionary : — 

"At Meskeneh I saw women and children throw them- 
selves into trenches, and beg the grave-diggers to bury them. 
The Government furnishes no bread. 

"In Hamar, of 7000 deportees 3000 were naked. They 
gathered locusts, and ate them, cooked or uncooked, ac- 
cording as they could get fire. 

"Some even caught dogs in the street and ate them 
raw. 

"In Rekka 15,000 deportees live in tents in a camp on 
both sides of the Euphrates. The people are not allowed 
to enter the city. 

"Everywhere there are terrible pictures of nakedness, 
hunger and death. The authorities are doing nothing. 

"Some of the people, in despair, threw themselves into 
the river. Everywhere we met caravans of Armenians car- 
ried from their homes. 

"We often saw whole rows of ghastly forms rising sud- 
denly out of graves and asking for bread and water. All 
have dug their own graves and are awaiting death. The 
number is not less than 30,000 as I write. 

"Some who cannot beg lie in cots on the ground until 
death releases them. Nobody looks to them, dead or 
alive. 

"At a Government investigation, it was shown that there 
had been cannabalism, and the dying had been fought over 
to obtain their flesh for food. 

"It is to be remembered that these people have done 
no wrong. It was desired by the Turkish Government that 
they should be got rid of." 

The testimony of two Mussulmans (ex-officials), pub- 
lished in The Times,^ confirms the stories related above. 

* January i, 1917. 



THE MURDER OF A NATION 217 

"In August, 1915" (relates the first eyewitness), "I saw 
in the suburbs of Mush large numbers of dead bodies 
of Armenian men, women and children lying in the fields. 
Some had been shot, some stabbed, and nearly all horribly 
mutilated. . . . 

"In the same month of August, at about two hours from 
Zaart, I saw masses of Armenian bodies piled up in two 
ravines. I estimate the number at about 15,000. I learned 
that the Armenian Bishop of Zaart had . . . been shot in 
a cave near by. 

". . . On my way back from Zaart to Mush there were 
500 Armenians herded together in a stable near Mush and 
locked in. Through an opening in the roof the gendarmes 
threw flaming torches; I saw the flames and heard the 
screams of the victims, all of whom were burned alive. . . . 

"Besides those whom the Turks had killed and burnt 
alive, thousands were thrown into the Euphrates. Many 
drowned themselves out of fear of a worse death." 

The second eyewitness stated — 

"In April, 191 5, an order came from Constantinople to 
Erzeroum, where I was quartered, that the Armenians in- 
habiting frontier towns and villages should be deported 
into the interior. ... In May I was transferred to Trebi- 
zond. In July an order came that all the Armenians of 
that vilayet should also be deported to the interior. As I 
was a member of the court-martial I knew that deporta- 
tion meant massacre. Besides the deportation order, an 
Imperial Iradeh commanded that all deserters, when 
caught, should be shot without trial. A secret order, 
however, said 'Armenians' instead of 'deserters.' A 
'fetva' from the Sheikh-ul-Islam accompanied the Iradeh, 
saying that the Armenians had shed Moslem blood, and 
that it was lawful to kill them. I heard that all Armenian 
men were being massacred on their way into the interior. 
... At Trebizond the children, whom the American Con- 
sul had taken charge of, were removed, taken out to sea in 
boats, stabbed, put into sacks and thrown into the sea. 



218 .THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

Some of their bodies were afterwards washed up on the 
shore. , . . 

"At Trebizond Moslems were warned that they would be 
liable to the death penalty if they sheltered Armenians. 
The best looking women were picked out by Government 
officials, outraged and murdered. 

"At Kamach I saw in prison the Kurdish chieftain, 
Murza Bey. I asked him why he was there. He said, 'I 
have killed 70,000 Armenians, and now they have arrested 
me for striking a gendarme.' " 

"In Haftevan and Salmas 850 corpses were found in the 
wells and cisterns alone, all without their heads. The Com- 
mander-in-Chief of the Turkish troops had promised a sum 
of money for every Christian head. The wells are soaked 
with the blood of Christians. . . , The soldiers who passed 
through from Satchbulak carried on the point of the bay- 
onet the head of the Russian consul ; the nuns had run into 
the street and prayed for pity but in vain." ^ 

"It was heartrending to hear the cries of the people and 
children who were being burnt to death in their houses. 
The soldiers took great delight in hearing them and when 
people who were out in the streets during the bombardment 
fell dead, the soldiers merely laughed at them. 

"The survivors were sent to Urfa (there were none left 
but sick women and children) ; I went to the Mutesarrif 
and begged him to have mercy on the children at least, but 
in vain. He replied that the Armenian children must per- 
ish with their nation. All our people were taken from our 
hospital and orphanage; they left us three female servants. 
Under these atrocious circumstances, Moush was burnt to 
the ground. Every officer boasted of the number he had 
personally massacred as his share in ridding Turkey of the 
Armenian race. 

^ From a statement made by a German missionary in a let- 
ter quoted in Germany, Turkey and Armenia, being "a selection 
of documentary evidence relating to the Armenian atrocities 
from German and other sources," published by J. J. Keliher & 
Co., 1917, p. 19. 



THE MURDER OF A NATION 219 

"We left for Harpout (Kharpout). Harpout has be- 
come the cemetery of the Armenians; from all directions 
they have been brought to Harpout to be buried. There 
they lie, and the dogs and the vultures devour their bodies. 
In Harpout and Mezreh the people have had to endure 
terrible tortures. They have had their eye-brows plucked 
out, their breasts cut off, their nails torn off; their torturers 
hew off their feet or hammer nails into them just as they 
do in shoeing horses. This is all done at night-time; and 
in order that the people may not hear their screams and 
know of their agony, soldiers are stationed round the pris- 
ons, beating drums and blowing whistles. It is needless to 
relate that many died of these tortures. When they die 
the soldiers cry : 'Now let your Christ help you.' 

"One old priest was tortured so cruelly to extract a con- 
fession that, believing that the torture would cease and 
that he would be left alone if he did it, he cried out in his 
desperation, 'We are revolutionists.' He expected his tor- 
tures to cease, but, on the contrary, the soldiers cried : 
'What further do we seek ? We have it here from his own 
lips.' And instead of picking out their victims as they did 
before, the officials had all the Armenians tortured with- 
out sparing a soul." ^ 

"The following morning, at a very early hour, we heard 
the procession of exiles passing in front of our house, along 
the high road leading to Erzindjan. We followed them 
and kept up with them as far as the town, about an hour's 
walk. It was a very large gang — only two or three of 
them men, all the rest women and children. Many of the 
women looked demented. They cried out : 'Spare us, we 
will become Moslems or Germans or whatever you will; 
only spare us. We are being taken to Kamakh Boghaz 
to have our throats cut. . . .' The crowd was being moved 
on continually by the mounted gendarmes, brandishing their 
whips. . . . 

"On the road we broke our journey near a Greek 

* From a statement by a German eyewitness of occurrences 
at Moush ; communicated by the American Committee for Armen- 
ian and Syrian Relief. Ibid., pp. 26-7. 



220 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

village. A savage-looking man was standing by the roacZ- 
side. He began to talk with us, and told us he was sta- 
tioned there to kill all the Armenians that passed, that he 
had already killed 250. . . . 

"One day we met a convoy of exiles . . . the scene will 
never be forgotten by either of us ; a very small ninnber of 
elderly men, a large number of women — vigorous figures 
with energetic features — a crowd of pretty children, some 
of them fair and blue-eyed, one little girl smiling at the 
strangeness of all she was seeing, but on all the other faces 
the solemnity of death . . . and so they passed, some of 
them greeting us on the way — all these poor people, who 
are now standing at the throne of God, and whose cry goes 
up before Him. . . . 

"At another place, there were ten gendarmes shooting 
them down while Turkish workmen were finishing off the 
victims with knives and stones. . . . 

"One «night we slept in an Armenian house where the 
women had just heard that the men of the family had been 
condemned to death. It was frightful to hear their cries 
of anguish: 'Cannot your Emperor help us?' " ^ 

"In the village of Tel-Armen and in the neighbouring 
villages, about 5000 people were massacred, leaving only 
a few women and children. The people were thrown alive 
down wells or into the fire." ^ 

"In an Armenian school at Marash, I saw over a hun- 
dred women and children with bullet-wounds in their legs 
and their arms and with all sorts of mutilations; among 
them were children of one and two years. 

"On the 13th August thirty-four Armenians, including 
two boys of the age of twelve years, were shot at Marash. 
Again, on the 15th August, twenty-four were shot and 
fourteen were hanged. The twenty-four who were shot 
were tied together with a heavy chain that went round 
their necks and were made to stand up together in one 

* From a statement by two Red Cross nurses of Danish na- 
tionality, formerly in the service of the German Military Mission 
at Erzeroum, communicated by a Swiss gentleman of Geneva. 
Ibid., pp. 35-42. 'Ibid., p. 63. 



THE MURDER OF A NATION 221 

mass. They were shot in the presence of the Mohammedan 
population behind the American College. With my own 
eyes I saw the bodies, while still convulsed in the agonies 
of death, being handed over to the arbitrary disposal of 
the rough civilians who pulled the hands and the feet of 
the corpses, and during the next half-hour the policemen 
and gendarmes shot continuously with revolvers on these 
corpses, some of which were terribly disfigured, while the 
population looked on with amusement. Afterwards the 
same people marched up and down in front of the German 
hospital and shouted 'Yasha Almanya' {Long live Ger- 
many). Again and again I have been told by Mohamme- 
dans that it was Germany who caused the Armenians to be 
extirpated in this way. . . . 

"Kadir Pasha said to me at Marash : 'I know that, pur- 
suant to an order of the Government, the whole male popu- 
lation within the area of the 4th Army Corps was 
killed.' . . . 

"In Ras-el-Ain a convoy of 200 girls and women arrived 
in a state of complete nudity; their shoes, their chemises, 
everything, in short, had been taken away from them and 
they were made to walk for four days under the hot sun — 
the temperature was 122° in the shade — in their condition 
of nakedness, jeered at and derided by the escorting sol- 
diers. . . ". Whenever the wretched exiles appealed to the 
humanity of the officials the reply was: 'We have 
strict orders from the Government to treat you in this 
way.' . . . 

"In Besneh the whole population, consisting of 1800 
souls, principally women and children, were expatriated; 
it was alleged that they were to be deported to Urfa, 
When they reached the Goksug, a tributary of the Eu- 
phrates, they were compelled to take their clothes off and 
thereupon they were all massacred and thrown into the 
river. ^ 

* The author was informed at Alexandretta that, for six months 
after the Armenian massacres of 1909, the inhabitants would not 
eat fish caught in the sea on account of the number of bodies 
which had been thrown into it. 



222 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

"On a single day, latterly, 170 corpses were observed 
drifting down the Euphrates; and on several other days 
the number was fifty to sixty. Mr. A., an engineer, in the 
course of one ride, saw forty corpses. Those which were 
stranded on the river-shore are devoured by the dogs, while 
those which are caught by the sandbanks in the river are 
eaten up by the vultures. . . . 

"At Arab Punar a Turkish major, who spoke German, 
expressed himself as follows: 'I and my brother have 
taken a young girl at Ras-el-Ain who had been left on the 
road. We are very angry with the Germans for doing 
these things.' When I contradicted them, they said : 'The 
Chief of the General Staff is a German; von der Goltz 
is the Commander, and so many German officers are in 
the army. Our Koran does not permit the treatment 
which the Armenians have to suffer at present.' ... At 
Nuss Tell a Mohammedan inspector spoke similarly in 
conversation with a clerk. When I reproached him about 
this utterance, in the presence of others, he said: Tt is 
not only I who say this; every one will tell you the same 
tale.' 

"At Bridjik the prisons are always full in the day-time; 
they are emptied at night. Tell Armen, a village of 3000 
inhabitants, was raided; the inhabitants were massacred, 
the dead and living were thrown into the wells or burnt. 
Major von Kusch was a witness of the devastation. A 
German cavalry captain saw unburied corpses on both sides 
of the road with their throats cut. Innumerable corpses 
of children were seen on the way by Mr. S." ^ 

"This is the teaching of the Germans," says the simple 
Turk, when asked about the authors of these measures. 
The better educated Mohammedans are convinced that, 
though the German people may disapprove of such horrors, 
the German Government took no steps to prevent them out 
of consideration for their Turkish allies. 

"Mohammedans of more refined feelings, Turks as well 
as Arabs, shake their heads disapprovingly; they do 

* Extracts from the records of a German who died in Turkey. 
Ihid., pp. 67-79. 



THE MURDER OF A NATION 223 

not even conceal their tears when, in the passage of a 
convoy of deported Armenians through the town, they 
see Turkish soldiers violently using their heavy sticks 
against women in an advanced state of pregnancy or dying 
persons who cannot drag themselves any farther. They 
cannot imagine that their Government has ordered these 
cruelties, and think that all excesses are the fault of the 
Germans, who, during the war, are the instructors in all 
matters. Even the Mullahs declare in the mosques that 
it was not the Sublime Porte but the German officers who 
had ordered the ill-treatment and the annihilation of the 
Armenians. 

"The things which in this place have been before every- 
body's eyes during many months will, indeed, be and re- 
main a blot on Germany's shield of honour in the eyes of 
all oriental nations. . . . 

"Another man (Herr Spiecker, of Aleppo) saw some 
Turks tying a number of Armenians together and sending 
a number of shots from rook-rifles into the mass of human 
beings; then they went away, laughing aloud, while their 
horribly convulsed victims expired slowly. Other men were 
sent rolling down steep slopes with their hands tied behind 
their backs. Below, there were women who mangled those 
who had rolled down, with their knives, continuing these 
tortures until they were dead. A Protestant minister, who, 
two years ago, had given a most cordial reception to my 
colleague Dr. Graeter, had his finger-nails torn out. 

"The German Consul at Mosul said, in my presence, in 
the German Club at Aleppo, he had seen hacked-off chil- 
dren's hands on his way from Mosul to Aleppo in sufficient 
number to pave a street.^ 

"In the German hospital at Urfa there is also a little girl, 
both of whose hands have been hacked off. Herr Holstein, 

*The editor of these documents here appends the following 
note — 

"The fact, which comes out clearly in several of the documents 
included in this pamphlet, that many German Consuls reported 
indignantly about these horrors and that their reports were left 
unheeded, throws a lurid light on the attitude of the German 
Government." 



224 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

the German Consul at Mosul, also saw, in the neighbour- 
hood of an Arab village, shortly before reaching Aleppo, 
shallow graves with corpses of Armenians with reference 
to whom the Arab villagers said that they had killed them 
by order of the Government One of them said proudly 
that he had killed eight. . . . 

"We are the allies of Turkey, and having eliminated the 
influence of the Frenchman, the Englishman, and the Rus- 
sian, we are the only ones who have anything to say in 
Turkey. We may indignantly repudiate the lies circulated 
in enemy countries that the massacres have been organised 
b}^ German Consuls ; we shall not, however, destroy the be- 
lief of the Turkish people that Germany has ordered the 
Armenian massacres, unless some energetic steps are at last 
taken by German diplomatists and German officers. . . . 
It would be a serious mistake to assume that the Turkish 
Government would, of its own accord, desist from the an- 
nihilation of women and children, unless the strongest pres- 
sure were to be exercised by the German Government. 

"A short time before my departure from Aleppo, in May, 
19 1 6, all the women and children encamped at Ras Agin, 
on the Baghdad railway line, whose number was estimated 
at 20,000, were mercilessly slaughtered." ^ 

Any one who wishes to complete this tale of horrors may 
read The Murder of a Nation,^ by A. J. Toynbee, or the 
collection of documents from which our last quotations 
were taken, or the Blue Books. 

Nor is Turkey alone in her imitation of Germany's 
methods of warfare. The Matin learns from Salonika that 
the Serbian refugees arriving there give terrible details of 
the atrocities committed in their country by the Bulgari- 
ans: "All the Serbians who fall into the hands of the 
Bulgarians are barbarously tortured to death, without re- 
gard to their age or sex. Nameless acts of cruelty have 
been committed, notably in the environs of Nish, where 

^ "A word to the accredited representatives of the German 
people," by Dr. Martin Niepage, Higher Grade Teacher at the 
German Technical School at Aleppo. Ihid., pp. 96-11 1. 

^ Hodder & Stoughton. 



THE MURDER OF A NATION 225 

hundreds of women and children have been burnt in the 
churches, in which they have taken refuge, hoping that the 
sacred character of these edifices would inspire the invad- 
ers with mercy. In Macedonia, pillage and incendiarism 
have been carried on with such method that no house re- 
mains standing where the Bulgarians have passed." ^ 

According to the Agence des Balkans, the Bulgarian 
troops which invaded Serbia systematically massacred the 
civil population, burning the towns and villages. Nameless 
atrocities were committed by them in the Timok and the 
district of New Serbia. Hundreds of men were shot, 
hanged, or burnt alive. Children were mutilated in abom- 
inable fashion and tortured to death. Women and young 
girls were handed over by the officers to their men, and in 
most cases shot or burnt, after having been outraged. 
Prisoners and wounded were covered with petroleum and 
burnt alive or their eyes and tongues were torn out. Some 
atrocities are too hideous to be mentioned. 

"The frightful atrocities," reports another newspaper, 
"committed by the Bulgars and Germans at Tutrakan have 
caused great indignation throughout Roumania. Those 
who were waverers as regards the policy of taking sides 
against the Central Powers are among the first to demand 
ample reprisals upon the enemies across the Danube, and 
a fight to the finish is called for. 'Let not a Bulgar be al- 
lowed to remain on earth' is the general cry. Prisoners 
were put up against walls and shot in batches by the Ger- 
mans. The ambulance corps in Tutrakan, while waiting 
for wounded to be brought in, were set upon by the popu- 
lace and put to unheard-of tortures, women and children 
aiding gleefully in the atrocious work. The hospitals in 
Bucharest contain hundreds of proofs of the savagery of 
the Bulgars; but those who escaped are but a handful com- 
pared with those who fell victims to the frightful tortures 
inflicted on them by those fiends in human shape. The 
Roumanian authorities are causing strict investigations to 
be made, and soon another set of horrors will be ready to 
present, with protest, to the neutral Powers." 

^ November, 191 5. 



XII 

THE TREATMENT OF PRISONERS 

Of the treatment of our soldiers and those of our Allies 
imprisoned in Germany we have examples in the official re- 
ports on the encampments at Wittenberg and Gardelegen. 
The sufferings endured by the British prisoners at Wit- 
tenberg, where 15,000 persons were crowded into a space 
of 105^ acres, are described in a report presented by the 
Committee appointed by the Government to inquire into 
the treatment by the enemy of British soldiers taken pris- 
oners. Let the reader study it.^ 

Meanwhile the following short summary of the story 
given by a daily newspaper will suffice : — 

"To-day the whole of the British Empire is reading the 
story of the Horrors of the Wittenberg Camp, and the hor- 
ror of it will never die. It will remain for ever on the roll 
of the abominations of the world. Typhus broke out in 
the Wittenberg Camp in the beginning of 191 5. All the 
German medical authorities abandoned the camp at once; 
food, drink, medical dressing, drugs, were all either stinted 
to starvation point or refused altogether with curses on the 
English swine who asked for them. The uninfected were 
compelled to mingle with the infected. The healthy were 
compelled to sleep on the mattresses which had been used 
by the sick. The only stretchers available were the tables 
on which the men had their food . . . Other horrors are 
scarcely to be told. 

"The other day we rescued the crew of a drowning Zep- 
pelin. We treated these murderers kindly. Two English 
officers turned out of bed to make room for the captain 

* The Horrors of Wittenberg: Official Report of the British 
Government. 

226 



THE TREATMENT OF PRISONERS 227 

murderer and his lieutenant. The Zeppelin-men expected 
to be shot, knowing that they deserved to be shot, and they 
told the neutral journalists who saw them that they were 
very well treated. And the Wittenberg people jeered at 
the coffins of our English dead as they were brought out 
for burial from the prison camp." ^ 

As to Gardelegen, Major Davy says in his evidence: 
"The overcrowding was such as I have never before seen 
or imagined anywhere. The hut contained, in the breadth, 
four rows of straw or shaving palliasses, so arranged that 
laterally they were touching and terminally only left the 
narrowest passage-way between. Here men of all nation- 
alities were crowded together. In these huts, devoid of 
tables and stools, the men lived, slept, and fed. They sat 
on their bags of shavings to eat their meals; they walked 
over each other in passing in and out; they lay there sick, 
and later on, in many cases, died there cheek by jowl with 
their fellow-prisoners. The atmosphere by day, and still 
more by night, was indescribably foetid, and this was their 
sole alternative to going outside in their meagre garments 
for fresh air." 

Captain Scott-Williams shows how this specially affected 
the British prisoners : "It was like one large palliasse all 
round the room. If one man was lying on his back, his 
neighbour must be on his side." 

"I have no hesitation," says Major Davy, "in saying 
that the diet the prisoners received was not sufficient to 
keep an adult in a normal state of nutrition. I wish to 
be clearly understood : I mean that every man who subsisted 
on what was issued to him was gradually getting emaciated 
and anaemic, and was constantly a prey to the pangs of hun- 
ger." 

"It was no unusual sight," according to the testimony 
of Captain Brown, to see a crowd of Russians on their 
hands and knees in the pit in which potato peelings were 
thrown, struggling to find a stray potato or a piece of rind 
with a little more potato than usual. This occurred day 
after day." ... 

^Evening News, loth April, 1916. 



228 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

"At the daily roll-call parades," says Major Davy, 
"men were driven out of their barrack-rooms with kicks 
and blows. The German under-officers were the chief of- 
fenders. The German officers, of whom one was in com- 
mand of each company, were mostly elderly men, who 
seemed quite in the hands of their under-officers. I never 
once saw one check an under-officer for the most flagrant 
bullying! . . ." 

No. 7 Company was the first to be visited by Captain 
Brown. This is his description of the experience — 

"Snow had fallen, and was still falling heavily, and the 
cold was intense. On entering the barrack-room the shock 
I received was too awful for words. The atmosphere was 
almost too foul. All windows were shut as the only means 
of warmth. There were about 150 of the most miserable 
human objects I ever beheld — British, French, and Bel- 
gians occupied this room, the number of British here being 
about twenty-six. The men were emaciated, ill-clad, and 
dirty beyond description, and in most cases were engaged 
in killing as many lice as possible in their clothes : 'to keep 
the numbers down as much as possible,' as one man put 
it. The senior non-commissioned officer in the room was 
a company sergeant-major of the Royal Scots. Being so 
appalled with the dirty state of all the men, himself in- 
cluded, I remonstrated with him and asked him why they 
were so positively filthy, and if they had lost all their in- 
terest in life, for so It seemed. His reply was that they 
had no opportunity of a bath since their arrival. 'How 
long have you been here ?' I asked and the reply came 'Ten 
weeks.' " 

Thus were sown the seeds of the epidemic which soon 
supervened.^ 

^The Typhus Epidemic at Gardelegen. Report by the Gov- 
ernment Committee on the Treatment by the Enemy of British 
Prisoners of War during the Spring and Summer of 191 5. The 
reports of the American Minister in Germany show that the 
treatment of prisoners is much the same in other towns than Wit- 
tenberg and Gardelegen, and the tortures to which they are sub- 
jected during their conveyance from one place to another have 
been described by many eyewitnesses. — See Belgian Reports. 



THE TREATMENT OF PRISONERS 229 

Contrast these stories with the letters which German 
prisoners write to their friends, such as the following — 

. . . "You need have no anxiety about me. I am ex- 
ceptionally well. I have never been better in my life. 
Germany might find something better to do than to spread 
such lies. England treats her prisoners most humanely. 
I was not nearly so well off when I was a soldier. ... I 
am working at present, but quite voluntarily. England 
does not compel her prisoners to work as Germany does. 
Food is also plentiful, just like at home; all I need is 
cigarettes. You may send me a few." 

. . . "They do everything possible for us. I have been 
given so many cigarettes ? We may have as much to eat as 
we want. Also the medical treatment could not be better." 

. . , "We should never have dreamed of being received 
so well. Everything that had been taken away from us 
before has been given back to us. We were immediately 
given fried eggs." . . . 

"I am lying in hospital since May 15, suffering from 
typhus, but I am much better now. The medical treatment 
and nursing are very good. I hope the wounded and sick 
over there are as well cared for." ^ . . . 

Reports of visits of inspection made by officials of the 
United States Embassy (German Division) to internment 
camps in the United Kingdom all testify to the comfort, and 
even luxury, which the German prisoners enjoy in this 
country, including facilities for football, tennis, billiards, 
theatrical performances, and rooms where they listen to 
lectures and study foreign languages. The sanitary con- 
ditions are reported to be perfect, the food excellent. Gar- 
dens are allotted to the prisoners where they grow flowers 
and vegetables. 

^We are not authorised to give the names of the writers of 
these letters, but the reader may rest assured that they are au- 
thentic. 



S30 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

"There is a special winter garden with plants and palm 
trees and an outdoor compound for the convalescents, and 
there is also a special library in the hospital for the use of 
the patients. Everything was inspected and found in ex- 
cellent condition. . . . 

"There are libraries containing about 2500 books, which 
are in constant circulation. A new reading-room has 
lately been opened. . . . 

"The men are now very busy making arrangements for 
Shakespearean performances to celebrate the Tercentenary 
of Shakespeare's death, and these are to take place before 
long. . . . 

"I was informed that the interned men now have free- 
dom to wander about the park and compounds at will dur- 
ing the day." 

(Report covering a visit to the prisoners of war 
internment camp at Alexandra Palace on the 24th 
May, 19 1 6.) 

"Besides the usual 'Lowry' and 'Markel' committees, 
there is an Austro-Hungarian committee, which devotes its 
particular attention to interned Austrians and Hungarians ; 
a kitchen committee, which arranges everything to do with 
the mess; a sports committee, a theatrical committee, a 
Y.M.C.A, committee, and a camp committee which deals 
with the internal arrangement and affairs of the camp. All 
these committees are chosen and run by the prisoners them- 
selves." 

(Report covering a visit of inspection to the pris- 
oners of war internment camp at Lofthouse Park, 
Wakefield, on the 8th June, 1916.) 

"The committees are all controlled by the prisoners them- 
selves. There is a mess and canteen committee, a sports 
committee, a location committee which arranges in which 
rooms the officers are quartered, and an amusement com- 
mittee. . . . 

"Two new lawn-tennis courts have been laid out, which 
give the interned men three courts in all. A new skittle- 



THE TREATMENT OF PRISONERS 231 

alley has been made, which the servants are allowed to use 
for two hours each afternoon. The opportunities for ex- 
ercise, mentioned in the last report, are in constant use. 
On the exercise ground, hockey and football are played on 
alternate days. The system of taking walks in the sur- 
rounding country has been inaugurated, and on every fine 
day about twenty-five officers go for a walk, lasting from 
one to two hours, accompanied by an officer and an orderly 
of the guard. On the day of our visit one of us went out 
with the walking party, and enjoyed a pleasant walk 
through beautiful country." 

(Report covering a visit of inspection to the pris- 
oners of war internment camp at Donington 
Hall, Derbyshire, on the 9th June, 19 16.) 

"All the rooms were fresh and spotlessly clean. The 
men had made them bright with flowers, and some of them 
had singing birds in cages hanging in the windows. On the 
walls there were pictures and portraits of the German Em- 
peror, German Generals, the King of Saxony, and many 
photographs. 

"Ships' captains and ships' officers have separate rooms 
and a separate mess." 

(Report covering a visit of inspection to the pris- 
oners' of war internment camp at Oldcastle, 
county Meath, Ireland, on the loth June, 
1916.) 



XIII 

METHODS OF PERSUASION 

By the perpetration of these abominable atrocities, the 
Germans not only hope to wreak their vengeance on those 
who have dared to oppose their invading armies, but to 
give the neutral States to understand that the same fate 
is reserved for them, should they throw in their lot with 
the enemies of the Central Powers. At the same time, 
they are employing all dishonourable means in order to 
bring these neutral States over to their own cause. 

Since the beginning of the war, and indeed for some 
time previously to its outbreak, their agents have been at 
work in every' quarter of the globe, disseminating among 
the inhabitants stories to the discredit of their enemies. No 
means, however despicable, have been neglected in the pur- 
suit of this object. Pamphlets are distributed among the 
Mussulmans, alleging that England and her Allies have de- 
clared war against Turkey with the sole intention of sup- 
pressing the Moslem faith. One of a series of sheets dis- 
tributed in Persia states that Lord Kitchener, Sir Edward 
Grey and other Ministers, French, Russian and English, 
have made it clear in their "diabolical" speeches that they 
have declared war against Turkey for the express purpose 
of destroying the Holy Places of Islam, whereas it is well- 
known to every Moslem who has had any experience of 
English rule that it is one of its most sacred principles to 
respect the traditions of Islam, as indeed those of all re- 
ligions. Moreover, Mr. Asquith most emphatically stated, 
on behalf of the English people, that, although England Is 
at war with Turkey, she is not and never will be at war 
with Moslems as such, but will, on the contrary, protect 

232 



METHODS OF PERSUASION 233 

their Holy Places against all aggressors. The Germans 
know that this is so, but, in accordance with their mon- 
strous doctrine that everything is permissible which con- 
duces to the success of their object, they do not hesitate to 
promulgate such calumnies. Such a thing as chivalry or 
fair play is unknown to their nature. 

No opportunity of carrying out this campaign has been 
neglected. The writer has a copy in his possession of an 
exercise in German given at the beginning of the war to 
the pupils of a German school in one of the Turkish towns, 
in which the following words occur — 

"Every German soldier is a man of honour and any one 
who is incapable of becoming a soldier on account even of 
some physical defect is despised by the rest of his com- 
patriots. 

"No man of honour enlists in the English army. Every 
English soldier is a criminal; either a murderer or a rob- 
ber, or a pickpocket or a man of low passions." ^ 

Huge sums of money are spent in bribing the proprietors 
of newspapers and persons of influence to publish telegrams 
and leading articles, misrepresenting the facts of the war. 
In one of the Balkan States alone twenty million francs 
were spent in this way. 

It has been stated that ten million pounds were paid by 
the German Government for Press propaganda in foreign 
countries during the first two years of the war, according 
to an interpellation addressed to the Imperial Chancellor 
in the Reichstag by the dissenting Socialists. For the same 
object two million pounds were spent in the United States, 
one million in Greece, five hundred thousand in Turkey, 
and five hundred thousand in Bulgaria. It was also found 
necessary to sacrifice six hundred thousand pounds to Aus- 
trian and seven hundred thousand to Hungarian news- 
papers. The leading papers of Vienna and Budapest are 
almost without exception on the pay-list of the German 
Foreign Office. Approximately two hundred thousand 

^Instruction in the details of Germany's might, such as the 
dimensions of her ships of war, was already imparted before the 
war, through the medium of dictations and reading exercises. 



234 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

pounds have been paid to newspapers in the German-speak- 
ing parts of Switzerland. 

According to the estimate of Mr. George Haven Putnam, 
the head of the American Rights Committee, $27,000,000 
(£5,400,000) have been spent in America, since the war 
began, under German authority for propaganda work, de- 
struction of American property, furtherance of strikes, and 
the purchase of American papers. This statement was 
made by Mr. Putnam in answer to a letter from Dr. O. 
Mezger, the German Consul-General at Cincinnati, who 
protested against the charges of German brutality in Bel- 
gium, and asserted that "Americans are misled by their 
newspapers, which have been hired by English money." 
Mr. Putnam stated further that he had received a great 
mass of German propaganda material, and added — 

"I have not received a single document from the British, 
French, or Italian representatives. They are content to 
permit the justice of their cause to stand for itself. The 
statements presenting the cause of England and France 
have come to me from individual correspondents on the 
other side of the Atlantic." 

In one of their pamphlets, distributed in the East, it is 
stated that only the scum of the Indian population has re- 
sponded to England's appeal, whereas, in fact, every rul- 
ing Indian chief, within the first fortnight of the war, 
placed his entire military and financial resources at the 
disposal of the British Government. 

They have circulated pamphlets throughout the whole 
extent of China announcing that England, France and Rus- 
sia have accepted a humiliating peace and have prac- 
tically acknowledged Germany's suzerainty over their do- 
minions. 

The following, according to the Gaulois,^ is the text 
of a letter addressed to the Sheikh of the Senoussi in 
Arabic, and found, together with a hundred thousand 
marks in gold, on board a sailing-boat seized outside Trip- 
oli by a French torpedo-boat : "The Emperor William, son 
of Charlemagne, the Envoy of Allah, Protector of Islam, to 

''August, 1915. 



METHODS OF PERSUASION 23S 

the most illustrious Chief of the Senoussi. We pray God 
to lead your armies to victory. Our will is, that your 
valiant warriors expel the infidels from the territory which 
belongs to the believers and to their Commander, We 
send you for this purpose, arms, money and some experi- 
enced leaders. Our common enemies (whom may Allah 
exterminate to the last man) will fly in confusion from be- 
fore you. So be it." 

The French Press affirms that German agents have at- 
tempted to demoralise French officers and soldiers at the 
front by sending them anonymous letters accusing their 
wives and sisters of infidelity, and their partners in busi- 
ness of embezzlement.^ 

"The Germans employ their aeroplanes for carrying on 
their propaganda as well as for throwing bombs," observes 
M. Charles Ghenu in the Gaulois. He describes some of 
the pamphlets and newspapers which have been dropped 
over the French lines. One of the former in his possession 
contains the following words: "French Soldiers! The 
Germans are making war on the French Government only, 
which is sacrificing you and your country to the egotism 
of the English. You have to pull the chestnuts out of the 
fire for the English." Foremost among their propaganda 
newspapers is the Gazette des Ardennes, which is printed in 
bad French at Charleville, and circulated as widely as pos- 
sible in the districts occupied by the German troops. Its 
contents are a model of hypocrisy and deceit. The writ- 
ers affect great sympathy for the French and their suffer- 
ings, as well as admiration for their bravery. Lists of 
French prisoners are given therein — "adversaries who 
have done their duty," and are treated as such in Germany. 
Pages of the names of the seriously wounded — the blind, 
the paralysed, and the permanently maimed — are pub- 
lished out of consideration for their families, who, as it is 
stated, "are not informed of their fate by the French Re- 
public, because it does not wish them to return to their 
people and inform them of the kind treatment that they 
receive at the hands of the Germans, and so counteract its 

* See the Matin, September 25, 1915. 



236 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

sinister object, which is to nourish a blind hatred against 
the German nation." ^ . . . 

The following is the text of an appeal by the Austrian mil- 
itary authorities to Italian troops to surrender, numerous 
copies of which were distributed by means of aeroplanes — 

"Soldiers of Italy, you are being wickedly drawn into a 
war of conquest and rapine. To fire treacherously upon 
your allies of yesterday is an immoral and a cowardly act, 
unprecedented in history, an act which calls for vengeance. 
Divine Providence will punish all those who commit such 
infamy. Every one of you, in the presence of God and of 
death, should condemn this monstrous crime which it is 
desired to perpetrate at the cost of your blood. Think of 
the terrible fatigue, and the constant danger to which a 
blinded Government is about to expose you! Think what 
irreparable misery will be brought upon your unhappy fam- 
ilies by the loss of their support ! Why expose yourselves 
to such a calamity, when there is a possibility of avoid- 
ing it? Take advantage of every opportunity to surren- 
der whenever there is a favourable moment. Refuse obedi- 
ence, and follow in a body the example of so many of 
your comrades, who have come to us of their own accord, 
and will never have cause to complain. You will receive 
a reward for all arms and other war material which you 
hand over to us — for every rifle complete lo crowns, for 
every mitrailleuse complete 500 crowns, for every cannon 
complete 2000 crowns, for every aeroplane 2000 crowns, 
for every horse 150 crowns. In Austria the prisoners of 
war are very well treated. They are kept in groups in vil- 
lages; they enjoy full liberty, receive substantial repasts 
as well as a money allowance, and are secure against all 
danger. Do not hesitate then. Come in a body. You 
will be welcome. Give this note as much publicity as pos- 
sible. Encourage your friends." 

It is Impossible in a short space to give the reader any 
conception of the energ}^ cunning and unscrupulousness 
with which the pro-Germain campaign is carried on in 
neutral countries. Men and women of all ranks and con- 
ditions from diplomatic representatives to domestic serv- 

^ Gaiilois, December 28, 1915. 



METHODS OF PERSUASION 237 

ants and persons of infamous character, play their part in 
it. It has required whole volumes of hundreds of pages 
to describe the details of its organisation in the United 
States of America alone.^ 

The system of pro-German propagandism established 
there by Count Dernburg and others was already very com- 
plete before the war began, but new agents appeared di- 
rectly it broke out. "Each arriving Dutch, Scandinavian 
and Italian steamer," writes Mr. Wile, "brought new ones, 
women as well as men. They were mostly of the intel- 
lectual type and came armed with entreating letters of in- 
troduction from German savants to their American col- 
leagues, upon whose affections Germany and the Kaiser 
had so long been working. To a couple of American ex- 
change professors William II sent autograph letters of grat- 
itude for zeal in his cause. By Christmas time it was es- 
timated that not less than one hundred German speakers 
were 'spell-binding' (speechifying) in the United States. 
. . . Meanwhile the United States mails were freighted 
with tons of German literature, such as that with which 
the country is familiar during presidential elections. Ex- 
perienced Americans — men who know the dollars and cents 
of such crusades — estimated that the campaign was cost- 
ing Germany £50,000 a week." 

But the mission of the German agents has not been 
limited to speechifying or even to intimidation. Not a 
few have been arrested on the charge of attempting to 
place explosive bombs on board American ships carrying 
munitions to England, and to blow up munition factories 
in America,^ without the remotest concern for the whole- 

^ The reader is referred to such works as I' Action Allemande 
aux £tats Unis, by Gabriel Alphaud (Paris, 191 5) ; German Con- 
spiracies in America, by William H. Skaggs (191 5) ; The German- 
American Plot, by Frederick William Wile (1915). 

* Explosions and fires in munition factories, which caused 
heavy loss of life among American subjects, have taken place 
"at Wilmington (September i, 1915) ; in the Bethlehem, Bald- 
win, and Roebling Works (November, 191 5) ; in the Dupont 
Works (December i) when thirty-one men were killed; while 
Hopewell, where lived the men employed in one of the Dupont 
Powder Works, was set on fire and destroyed on December 9." — 
The National Review, January, 191 7. 



2S8 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

sale slaughter of innocent citizens which would ensue. The 
documents recently seized on Captain von Papen, the Ger- 
man Military Attache at Washington, and published in 
facsimile in a White Book (Miscellaneous, No. 6, 1916), 
show that this person was employing paid agents to com- 
mit such crimes as these. 

These documents contain evidence, also, that the Ger- 
man and Austrian Embassies in America paid for attacks 
on Canadian territory; thus, the cheque paid for the de- 
struction of an important bridge on the Canadian Pacific 
Railway by a German agent named Horn, on February 2, 
191 5, was seized with Captain von Papen's luggage by the 
British Government.-^ 

Such, in brief, are the methods our enemies employ in 
order to attain their object, and these methods, however 
immoral, are permissible — the State being in German eyes, 
as we have seen, "above morality." Incapable, in spite of 
the colossal preparations they have made for years past 
with a view to Germanising the world, of fighting all the 
nations at once, they are anxious at the present moment 
not to multiply their enemies ; but, on the contrary, to win 
over, by all means and at all costs, as many of them as 
they can to their cause. We know that they wanted Eng- 
land to stand by and wait until France and Russia were 
crushed, and that they are more embittered against us 
than any of their other adversaries because we were too 
wise to adopt this course. Nothing is clearer than that 
Germany, if she succeeds in humbling her present adver- 
saries, will speedily establish her dominion over the remain- 
ing nations of the globe, including her own allies. If any 
one fails to see this, it is because he wilfully closes his 
eyes. German politicians, professors, military experts, 
theologians and editors of newspapers have, as we have 
seen, been crying "Deutschland iiber Alles" from the 
house-tops every day for years past. 

*Von Papen has also subsidised attempts to start revolutions 
in India, according to the confession of a Hindu student, to whom 
the sum of £8000 to £10,000 was supplied for that purpose. 



XIV 

THE WORLD UNDER GERMAN RULE; THE FATE OF 
ISLAM 

And when they have conquered the world, how will they 
use their victory? What will happen is too appalling to 
contemplate. Having stopped at nothing during the war, 
will they stop at anything when it is over? All nations 
are to be moulded after themselves — Deufschtum, German 
thought, German methods and German manners pervading 
everywhere. And in Germany, as Fernau, himself a 
German, says: "Individual opinions no longer exist, but 
only opinions that have found official sanction. Journal- 
ists and newspapers standing to attention! Field-grey 
sentiments and field-grey science! Iron words and iron 
money! The whole nation one mass of bronze, in which 
no golden streak of individual character is allowed to 
glimmer." ^ We may expect no more liberty than that 
which the eminent theologian Professor Lezius suggested 
should be accorded to the races already subject to Germany. 
"The Polish Press," he wrote, "should be simply annihil- 
ated. All Polish societies should be suppressed, without 
the slightest apology being made for such a measure. 
This summary procedure should be likewise applied to 
the French and Danish Press, as well as to the societies 
of Alsace-Lorraine and Schleswig-Holstein. Especially 
should no consideration whatever be shown to anything 
relating to the Poles. The Constitution should be altered 
with regard to the latter. The Poles should be looked 
upon as helots. They should be allowed but three priv- 

* Gerade weil ich Deutscher bin (English Translation, Because I 
am a German), p. 25. 

239 



MO THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

ileges: to pay taxes, serve in the army, and shut their 
jaws." ^ 

There will be but one law, that of the Kaiser of Ger- 
many,^ who has said: "Only one is master of this coun- 
try. That is I, Who opposes me I shall crush to pieces." 
Blind obedience will be owed to a State which is "above 
morality," which subordinates right to might, which will 
control the education of our children and instruct them 
one and all in the abominable gospel of dirt which, in Lord 
Rosebery's words, has "already caused this nation to stink 
in the nostrils of mankind." 

The world, in fact, will be absorbed in the German State. 
"After the war victorious Germany will compel the States 
defeated in the war to enter its confederation; the same 
will be done to the others, the neutrals, and if they do not 
consent, Germany will be able to force them. Germany 
alone will remain armed; the other armies will no longer 
have a reason for resistance. Germany will suffice for 
the protection of Deutschtum; she will be the centre of 
gravity of the world from the military point of view, and 
also from the point of view of scientific and intellectual 
culture." ^ 

Personal liberty will be a thing of the past. "The word 
liberty" writes the Kolnische Zeitnng, "dominates the 
political life of the western countries, whilst their society 
is animated by a spirit of unscrupulous individualism.* 

* Quoted from the Vorwdrts by Emil Reich {Germany's Swelled 
Head), p. 43. 

' "Germany has over all other States," writes Professor 
Ostwald, "the superiority of being an organising State; the secret 
of her power is her organising genius, and the war ought to en- 
able her, through the reduction of Europe to obedience, to organ- 
ise it into a vast confederation at whose head would stand the 
Emperor of Germany." — Quoted in The War and the German 
Propaganda, p. 7. 

'"According to Treitschke the individual exists only to pro- 
mote the welfare of the State; in return the latter protects him 
in warfare." — Professor F. A. Smith, Ph.D., in The Soul of 
Germany, p. 169. 

"Individualism, so far as it represents the protection of 



THE WORLD UNDER GERMAN RULE 241 

Neither for the one nor for the other is there any room in 
the Germany which has been built up by the Hohenzollerns ; 
that is the reason why Western Europe instinctively fears 
the imposition of German influence on Europe. It is true 
that the German has not got the same standards of political 
liberty as prevails in those countries. Historical experi- 
ences have caused him to doubt, and he asks himself 
whether liberty is really desirable for him and whether it 
is possible." ^ 

Civilians will be of no account. Militarism will be ram- 
pant in its worst form. "The lack of good faith on the 
part of our neighbours, and our open frontiers, will for ever 
compel us to remain a great military State. Neither Bel- 
gium, nor England, nor democratic France is a military 
State : hence the gulf which separates our ideals and our cul- 
ture from theirs, and that gulf truly appears unbridgeable. 
We cannot afford the luxury of the catchword liberty." ^ 

There will be no place for the weak.^ Democracy will 
be at an end. 

"Germany, the last and perfect example of organised 
militarism and brute force — the foundation stone of whose 
system is the monstrous electoral law which enables the 
military caste and minority to rule Prussia, and Prussia 
to dominate all Germany and make it one vast aggressive 
machine to be used at the will and word of the autocratic 
power! Germany, whose Parliament is regarded con- 
temptuously as a useful screen behind which the Power 
works its will. Germany, whose whole record does not in- 
clude one example of a prosperous, contented, or self-gov- 
erning province or colony. Germany, whose people have 

personal rights against any infringement of them by the group, 
is, in the eyes of the Germans, nothing less than anarchy and 
insanity. It is only as members of a group formed of many 
individuals that the weak can hope to obtain justice for them- 
selves." — L'Allemagne et le Droit des Gens, p. 45. 

^ Kolnische Zeitung, September i, 1914; quoted in The War 
and the German Propaganda, p. 8. 

'Ibid. 

* "The weak and defective shall go to the wall." — Nietzsche. 
This is an almost universal dictum of the great "Intellectuals." 



^42 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

been born and reared in the creed that, without .one word 
of warning as to the origin, justice, or object of a quarrel, 
they may be hurled into murderous war to stake and lose 
all at the nod of an autocrat's head! Surely, one huge en- 
gine of Aggression !" ^ 

"Read Tannenberg's book and then ask yourself, as M. 
Millioud says in the preface to his translation of Gross- 
Deutschland, "whether the fate of civilisation, that is to 
say, of liberty, right, democracy and the sovereignty of 
the people, is or is not at stake at the present moment." 

"In particular this is a war for the people. They have 
seen it. They perceive that the very existence of democ- 
racy as it has flourished in this little country is threatened 
with a death- woimd. If we could imagine the war-lords 
flushed with so stupendous a triumph as a prostrate Europe 
at their feet, no one could fail to see the essential elements 
of honourable, happy, self-respecting life would be at an 
end." 2 

Machiavelli will be reinstated and practised in every 
function of our lives ; ^ sympathy, pity * and all the gentler 
traits of human nature discouraged and perhaps stamped 
out to make room for hatred, envy, selfishness and brutal- 
ity ; eternal war ^ in place of "peace and goodwill towards 
all men." Truthfulness and loyalty — to anything but 
the State-machine — will be looked upon as vices, distrust 
and cunning as virtues. For if a State may break its 
treaties or a statesman tamper with a public document,* 

* Sir Percy Fitzpatrick in Germany's Designs on South Africa, 
pp. 12 1 -2. 

* Sir William Robertson Nicoll, in an appeal to Nonconform- 
ists, The Great Wa/r Book (Hodder & Stoughton), p. 66. 

'"It will always be to the glory of Machiavelli . . . that h« 
has freed the State and its morality from the precepts inculcated 
by the Church." — Treitschke, Politik. 

*"Pity is opposed to the invigorating passions which enhance 
the energy and feeling of life. Its action is depressing. . . . Pity 
thwarts the law of development" — Ibid. 

""We must accept war, which will last as long as develop- 
ment and existence ; we must accept eternal war." — Klaus Wagner, 
Krieg, p. 257. 

* Bismarck related with pride in the Neue Freie Presse, i^ge. 



THE WORLD UNDER GERMAN RULE 243 

why may not an individual break his contract or forge a 
cheque? A system of espionage will be established 
throughout the world like that which already exists in 
Germany: and if every individual must merge his person- 
ality in the German State, if not only our acts but our 
thoughts are to be guided by principles laid down by that 
State, will not religious freedom become a thing of the 
past? Will our children be merely flogged, as in German 
Poland, if they refuse to say their prayers in German, or 
will they be forbidden to say them at all except in con- 
formity with some creed to be determined by the State? 
Christianity finds no place in the teaching of Treitschke 
and his followers; and has not the philosopher Haeckel 
declared, with great wit no doubt in his own estimation, 
that the country, having no further use for God, has now 
conducted Him across the frontier? It is true that under 
the Kaiser's auspices, as it appears, a kind of tribal god or 
God of Atrocities, of the nature of the deity who presided 
at the councils of the Thugs of India, has been set up since 
the war began under the name of the good old German god ; 
but he certainly possesses none of the attributes of the God 
who is worshipped by any of the great nations of the earth. 
"In a word the Kaiser's religion is a German religion, his 
God is a German God ; his Church is a German church. His 
Deity is a Lord of Hosts and a God of Battles — a concep- 
tion taken almost literally out of the pages of the Old Testa- 
ment, more or less amalgamated with the idealism of the 
Norse mythology. In the Emperor's mind the Israelitish 
idea of Javeh is quite indistinguishable from the Scandi- 
navian idea of Thor" ^ — Thor, the son of Odin or Wotan, 
the God of Thunder, the Hammer-God, the incarnation of 
violence and champion of might as opposed to right. The 
Germans, as worthy representatives of his race, must hack 
their way through to the conquest of the world. 

how he had falsified the famous Ems telegram and so rendered 
war with France in 1870 inevitable. "Blessed be the hand which 
forged the Ems telegram," wrote Professor Hans Delbruck. — 
Paroles AUemandes, p. 56. 
^ Germany's War Mania, p. 95. 



244 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

The following legend is adopted by Tannenberg as an 
introduction to his Gross-Deutschland: — 

"Thor stood at the northern end of the world. He 
threw the battle-axe — the heavy battle-axe: 'As far as, 
whistling through the air, the hammer falls, both land and 
seas are mine.' And the hammer flew from his hand, flew 
over the whole of the earth and fell down at the most dis- 
tant edge of the south, so that all was his. Since when it 
is the joyous privilege of the German to conquer land with 
the hammer. We are of the race of the Hammer-God and 
we will possess his world-empire." ^ The favourite myths 
of German paganism are stories of violence. 

"One of the books encouraging the aspirations of young 
Germans for world dominion is the Jugendgeleithuch, 
Gedenke dass du ein Deutscher hist. On the cover is an 
illustration of Walhalla, the abode of the Norse deities of 
old, of whom the chief was Thor, the war-god. The book 
is advertised as 'The Song of Songs of the German civilis- 
ing power, a fitting gift to send to young men and to girls, a 
guide for officers, professors and educators of the people, 
indispensable to all those who live abroad.' " ^ 

As far as Germany is concerned, it cannot be said that 
Christianity has ever completely disenthroned the gods of 
Walhalla.^ Traces of their worship have existed even in 

* "Thor stand am Mittemachtsende der Welt, 
Die Streitaxt warf er, die schwere: 
'Soweit der sausende Hammer fallt, 
Sind mein das Land und die Meere!' 
Und es flog der Hammer aus seiner Hand, 
Flog iiber die ganze Erde, 
Fiel nieder am fernsten siidens Rand, 
Dass alles sein eigen werde. 
Seitdem ist es freudig Germanenrecht 
Mit dem Hammer Land zu erwerben. 
Wir sind des Hammergottes Geschlecht, 
Und wollen sein Weltreich erobern." 

(The author of these lines is the poet Felix Dahn.) 

' L'Allemagne et le Droit des Gens, p. 84. 
^"Odinism" existed in Germany before it appeared in Scan- 
dinavia. 



THE WORLD UNDER GERMAN RULE 245 

modern times, and where they are no longer worshipped 
by name their attributes are still the guiding principles of 
the nation. Quite recently attempts were made in various 
parts of Germany to reinstate the gods themselves in all 
their glory. A mystic society was formed at Munich under 
the name of the Odin Verein, the object of which was to 
restore not only the Pagan methods of reasoning, but the 
actual worship of the gods of Walhalla. The most popular 
form of its propaganda consisted in a portrait of the Kaiser 
with the attributes of Thor.^ A poem entitled "The Ger- 
man God," which has become extremely popular in Ger- 
many, is believed to have been issued by this society. 
"The enemies of Germany," it runs, "ask disdainfully: 
'You, Germans, you call upon God and beseech Him to aid 
you In the fight. You have then a god of your own, whom 
we know not, who is on your side?' 'Yes,' cries Germany 
with one voice, 'and if you do not know him we will name 
him to you. The god who speaks through our cannons, 
the god who throws down your fortresses . . . the god of 
our swords who fills you with terror, he is the same all- 
powerful spirit who, for centuries has hovered over Ger- 
many . . . Wotan, the old wanderer among the clouds, 
the Wotan of our fathers, it is he and no other. . . . The 
god to whom we pray to-day, who feeds us with celestial 
fire, the holy spirit of Germany, it is he whom we must 
acknowledge.' "... 

On the occasion of the christening of the German Iron- 
clad, the Heimddl, In 1892, the Emperor addressed the ship 
as follows : "O Ship, I christen thee HeimdalL Thou 

^ The same Kaiser is represented over the porch of the 
Cathedral at Metz as the prophet Daniel, on the Mount of Olives 
as Godfrey de Bouillon, and is said to have received at Constanti- 
nople the appellation of Hadji Mohammed Gilyom, as having 
embraced the Mussulman religion. When the German army 
entered the Polish town of Czenstochowa the picture of the 
Virgin and Child was replaced in the Church by a portrait of 
the Kaiser. "Lights were placed before it, and the wretched 
people were daily driven in by the brutal German soldiers to 
kneel before the man whom they regard as the Devil incarnate." 
— The Slafvs of the War -Zone, by the Right Hon. W. F. Bailey, 
pp. 40-1. 



246 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

shalt take thy name from the prehistoric times of our an- 
cestors in the north. Thou shalt bear the name of a God 
whose mission it was to defend the golden gates of Wal- 
halla. In the same way as that hero, in the hour of dan- 
ger, blew his golden horn in the Twilight of the Gods, so, 
as I hope, O Ship ! who wilt bear the great name of Heim^ 
dull, the sound of thy passing on the sea will sow trouble 
and dismay in the ranks of thy enemies." ^ 

The Temps ^ publishes the "confessions" of a German 
deserter, an officer in the Reserve, the son of a German 
engineer and a Polish lady, from which we quote the fol- 
lowing : — 

"I had to make my studies in Bavaria. . . . The people 
there are still primitive. Two thousand years have passed 
without changing them in any way beneath the surface. 
Catholicism which they profess is idolatry pure and simple. 
. . . My comrades prided themselves on materialism of the 
grossest kind, they publicly avowed their absolute con- 
tempt for the Catholic doctrine and recognised no reHgion 
except that of the German fatherland and the old German 
gods. . . . For the country-people, to-day as ever, the 
forces of nature remain personified in half a dozen fan- 
tastic beings whose names they have forgotten, but of 
whom they give an exact description, and who are no other 
than the gods of Walhalla. . . . There is no reason, there- 
fore, to be astonished that on ground so well prepared, after 
a century during which a multitude of historians have de- 
voted themselves, with extraordinary zeal, to bringing about 
a revival of the traditions, the habits and the laws of prim- 
itive Germany, the old beliefs should have been re-estab- 
lished. ... I did not then look upon these things as I see 
them to-day. With the simplicity of the Slav ideahst — 
for I consider myself in reality more Slav than German — ■ 
I looked upon this exhibition of German faith as an eccen- 
tricity of young men, a peculiar form of snobbishness, and 
I was only undeceived on the day when I entered Belgium 

^ See Le Vieux Dieu Allemand, pp. 68, 69, 70. 
^'July 18, 1915. 



THE WORLD UNDER GERMAN RULE 247 

with our German troops and heard my chiefs extol as Ger- 
man virtues the most revolting brutality and shameful 
cruelty." ^ 

The following story ^ was told by a lieutenant of the 
German Reserve forces, formerly a professor in one of the 
towns of Thiiringia, now a prisoner in France : — 

"During the summer months, which immediately pre- 
ceded the hostilities, men were seen to emerge from the 
woods, who assumed the appearance of prophets. On 
clear moonlight nights they preached, in the glades, a curi- 
ous form of religion. The old pagan myths were inter- 
mingled with precepts of the Bible. The prophet foretold 
evil times, a severe trial for Germany and terrible calami- 
ties. The German people could only save themselves by 
reverting to the most ancient rites, by accepting every sac- 
rifice, and even offering up human victims to the gods. 
We must not fear to devote ourselves to the gods of the 
lower regions. We must offer blood, as did our ancestors 
to the unappeased divinities ; the blood of women and chil- 
dren has ever been acceptable to them since the days of re- 
mote antiquity." 

The officer in question added that these addresses were 
renewed frequently and that the German masses went into 
the war intoxicated by such teaching. The atrocities 
which he had witnessed in Belgium had, in his opinion, no 
other origin. 

"The bloodthirsty gods of Walhalla," says M. Brenier, 
"whose tombstone it had seemed that the rude hand of 
Charlemagne had closed for ever, have, after ten centuries, 
risen again in all their vitality and their old lust for car- 
nage. It is in their honour that so much innocent blood 
has been shed, that children's hands have been severed from 
their arms, that so many towns have been reduced to a 
quarter of their population by fire and massacre. Thor 

^ Le Vieux Dieu Allemand, pp. 71, y2. 

*The story was published in the Echo de Paris, June 8, 1915, 
and is quoted by M. Brenier. 



248 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

has assuaged his hate for the Gothic Cathedrals,^ Odin has 
gorged himself with human sacrifices. . . . 

"It appeared to us to be of primary interest to throw on 
this important question as complete a light as is possible 
in the present state of our knowledge. There are several 
advantages in so doing : First, there is the interest of his- 
torical science; secondly, there is the proof that our sol- 
diers are defending at the present moment, though uncon- 
sciously, the cause of Christianity itself, now threatened by 
the most appalHng danger to which it has been exposed for 
centuries ; lastly, the more complete knowledge of the Ger- 
man spirit with which no peace will ever be more than a 
truce until the civilising work of Charlemagne has been re- 
vived along the Rhine by means powerful enough to tri- 
umph over all resistance, . . . 

"It was a duty to define the true character of German 
Kultur and point out the obligation under which Christian- 
ity and France are placed to annihilate it if they would 
themselves subsist." ^ 



As to the fate of Islam under German rule, let the fol- 
lowers of that religion study the official document lately 
seized by the Boer Commander, General Smuts, at the town 
of Moshee in East Africa after he had captured it from the 
Germans, and compare it with the Kaiser's assertion that 

*It is interesting, in this connection, to recall the prophetic 
words of Heine written seventy-eight years ago : — 

"Christianity — and this is its highest merit — has, in some 
degree, softened, but it could not destroy, that brutal German 
joy of battle. When once the taming talisman, the Cross, breaks 
in two, the savagery of the old fighters, the senseless Berserker 
fury, of which the Northern poets sing and say so much, will 
gush up anew. That talisman is decayed, and the day will 
come when it will piteously collapse. Then the old stone gods 
will rise from the silent ruins, and rub the dust of a thousand 
years from their eyes. Thor, with his giant's hammer, will at 
last spring up, and shatter to bits the Gothic cathedrals !" — 
Quoted in A Textbook of the War for Americans, p. 315. 

' Le Vieux Dieu Allemand, pp. 75, 76. 



THE WORLD UNDER GERMAN RULE 249 

he is the protector of all the Mussulmans. It is as follows — 

"Daressalam, October 13, 1913. 

"Official Circular 

to all the District and Military Stations and to the 
Residency of Urundi, 

"I have the honour to request the Administrative Au- 
thorities to report to me, within three months, as to the 
means by which it appears to them to be possible to check 
effectively the Islamic propaganda carried on by Govern- 
ment officials, and in particular by the teachers in the Gov- 
ernment schools. Does it appear to be practicable to issue 
an Order altogether forbidding the above-mentioned per- 
sons to carry on any Islamic propaganda ? It might be pos- 
sible also to consider the question of passing a regulation 
forbidding the teachers to exceed their official functions by 
performing circumcision or the duties of reciter of prayers 
in the mosque. Further we may examine the question 
whether such an Order may not be issued with respect to 
the other coloured Government officials. As a practical 
means of preventing the extension of Islam, experts fur- 
ther recommend that the natives should be encouraged to oc- 
cupy themselves with the breeding of swine. 

"I beg that you will also take this proposal into con- 
sideration. 

"The Imperial Governor, 

(Signed) "Schnee. 

"A true copy, 

"The Central Bureau." ^ 

^ "RUNDERLASS 

an alle Bezirksamter und Militarstationen sowie die Residentur 

Urundi. 
"Die Dienststellen ersuche ich ergebenst um Bericht inner- 
halb 3 Monaten, welche Mittel dort moglich erscheinen, um der 
islamitischen Propaganda durch Regierungsangestellte und 
insbesondere Lehrer der Regierungschulen wirksam entgegen 
zu wirken. Erscheint eine Bestimmung durchfuhrbar, durch die 
den genannten Personen die islamitische Propaganda ganz unter- 
sagt wird? Eventuell kame auch eine Vorschrift in Betracht, 



250 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

Let them also compare the wording of this document 
with Mr. Asquith's speech referred to below,^ and let them 
say candidly if the statements there made are not in har- 
mony with what they have always experienced ; and whether 
they have had cause to complain, or heard any of their co- 
religionists complain, that England has ever placed any im- 
pediment in the way of the free exercise of the Mussulman 
creed or of the creed of any people living within her domin- 
ions. At the beginning of the war a Mussulman native of 
India, residing in Turkey, told the writer that he was asked 
by a Turk how it was that 80,000 Albanians were able to 
revolt against their Turkish rulers, while 80,000,000 Mus- 
sulmans in India were content to remain under British rule, 
and that he had replied that the Mussulmans in India had 
no desire to throw off their allegiance to a Power which 
showed such great respect as England does for the Mus- 
sulman creed. He told him, amongst other things, that 
more care is taken in India than in Turkey itself to ensure 
that no noise outside the mosques shall disturb the devo- 
tions of those within. 

Neither the untiring efforts of German agents to create 
disturbance In India nor even the adhesion of the Turkish 
rulers to the German cause has made any impression on the 
inhabitants of that country. "As a true Mohammedan," 
wrote the Nizam of Hyderabad to the Viceroy, "who 
has the welfare of his community at heart, and who takes 
a just pride in the glorious traditions of the Mohammedan 

durch die es den Lehrern verboten wird, nebenamtlich die Be- 
schneidung, das Amt des Vorbeters in der Moschee u.s.w. aus- 
zuiiben. Es wird auch zu priifen sein, ob ein solches Verbot 
fur sonstige farbige Regierungsangestellte durchfiihrbar sein 
wiirde. Als wirksames Mittel gegen die Verbreitung des Islam 
wird von Sachkennern ferner die Forderung der Schweinezucht 
durch die Eingeborenen empfohlen. 

"Auch zu diesem Vorschlag bitte ich Stellung zu nehmen. 
"Der Kaiserliche Gouverneur, 

(ges) "SCHNEE. 

"Fiir rechtige Abschrift, 

"Zentral Bureau." 
* p. 232. 



THE WORLD UNDER GERMAN RULE 251 

people, I view with profound grief the unwise, short- 
sighted, and futile course adopted by Turkey in joining 
Germany as an ally. The British Government has spared 
no efforts to avoid war with Turkey." 

In a speech delivered on October i, 19 14, Agha Khan, 
the spiritual head of an important community of Moham- 
medans and President of the All-India Moslem League, 
said he had always been convinced that Germany was the 
most dangerous enemy of Turkey and other Moslem coun- 
tries, for she was the Power most anxious to enter by 
"peaceful penetration" Asia Minor and Southern Persia. 
But she had been posing for years past as a sort of Pro- 
tector of Islam — though heaven forbid that they should 
ever have such an immoral protector. "We wish for peace 
under the King," writes the Emir of Bornu to the English 
Governor of the province, "and not under the Germans. . . . 
We are Mussulmans and not pagans, for we are free to 
worship in our own way and our religion is not interfered 
with. And so we pray God to prosper the King and to 
give him long life." The Emir of Kontagora writes : "We 
are continually praying God that He will give you the 
victory, and that He will destroy the Germans because 
we know well that they are an evil people of evil customs. 
Therefore may God not help them at all, because theirs is 
the custom to spoil the land." 

The Grand Shereef of Mecca published, in November of 
last year, a second manifesto in vindication of his action 
against the Unionist ^ Government of Turkey, from a lit- 
eral translation of which, published in The Near East,^ the 
following are extracts : — 

.... "It is well known that all wise Moslems and in- 
telligent persons in the Ottoman Empire, and indeed, in the 
rest of the world, do not approve of the entry of the Otto- 
man Government in the present war, and this for essential 
reasons, of which the chief is that the Ottoman Govern- 
ment had only just come out of the Italian and Balkan 

^ I.e. the Government formed by the so-called "Union and 
Progress" or "Young Turkey" party. 
* In its issue of November 17, 1916. 



252 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

wars. . . . But there are also other reasons of an external 
order which have reference to the group of belligerents 
with which it sided. The Ottoman Empire is a Moslem 
Empire of vast limits and an extensive coastline, and the 
traditional policy which the Sultans of the great house of 
Othman pursued has therefore always been based on the 
maintenance and improvement of friendly relations with 
those Powers in whose colonial empires the largest portion 
of the Moslems of the world live, and who hold the supre- 
macy of the seas. When, therefore, the Unionist Govern- 
ment entered this war against these Powers, siding with 
the other group, whose inordinate ambitions of expansion 
are determined by over-population in their own countries, 
all far-seeing Moslems could easily realise the evil conse- 
quences that were bound to follow. I was one of those, 
when I was asked by telegram about my opinion on this 
war, and I replied, giving the advice that I could only in 
all conscience give. This, indeed, is one of the proofs of 
my sincere and loyal friendship to the Ottoman Govern- 
ment, and of my solicitude for its welfare and for the 
protection of the stronghold of Islam. . . . Whoever con- 
templates this state of things and watches the progress of 
this war cannot but see clearly the final result. We had 
either to give ourselves up to this threatening danger until 
we disappeared Trom the map of the world, or seek some 
means of escape. We leave it to the world at large to 
examine this question and reply thereto, and we have not 
the least doubt but that they will justify our rising, which 
came just in time, before ruin overtook by surprise the 
remnant of this empire. Ay, we have no misgiving what- 
ever about the legitimacy of our movement, which, indeed, 
was incumbent on us as a duty. Did we at all believe that 
our continued attachment to this Government — which has 
become a toy in the hands of a few dictators — would be 
of any use to it and save its possessions, we should have 
refrained from the steps we have taken and would have 
possessed our souls in patience and borne our share of the 
sacrifice. But how was this possible when it became evi- 
dent that, if we were to allow ourselves to be led in the 



THE WORLD UNDER GERMAN RULE 253 

path they were treading, we should have both been hurled 
into the abyss of destruction, as was the case with the other 
vilayets ? 

"To illustrate the character of the Unionist leaders, and 
judge the measure of their loyalty and good faith, it suffices 
to mention that soon after the payment of the loan with 
which France helped them at the moment of their dire need 
they went over to the side of her enemies and declared war 
on her. But this is not the only test of their moral worth ; 
the fact has been cited because of its being so notorious and 
of recent date. One has but to recall the acts of cruelty 
and injustice to which the people, Christians and Moslems 
alike, are subjected, and especially the inhuman treatment 
which those holding the power have meted out during this 
war to the Greeks and Armenians, contrary to the dictates 
of our holy Sheriat. The}^ were, indeed, not long in fol- 
lowing the same barbarous course against the Arabs of 
Syria and Irak, and even of Arabia, such as the people of 
Al Awali (one of the suburbs of Medina), whose women 
they have kidnapped and led to the barracks — an act which 
not only the Sheriat, but also Arab honour, reproves. 

"Ay, we have risen, and we do not cease proclaiming that 
our declaration of hostility and hatred is directed against 
Enver, Jemal and Talaat, and their followers. All right- 
minded Moslems, even members of the house of Othman, 
are at one with us in this. As a proof of this noble house 
sharing with us this attitude there is the assassination by 
these dictators of its pillar, the blessed martyr, the Heir 
Apparent of the Sultanate, the late Prince Yusuf Izz-ed 
Din, of blessed memory. We not only dissociate ourselves 
from them, but openly declare our hostility to, and hatred 
of, them and their ways ; and every pious and right-minded 
Moslem in the Ottoman Empire, as well as in all Moslem 
lands, cannot but associate himself with us in this, in view 
of the actual ruin that they have brought upon the land 
and the incalculable harm that they have caused to the 
great power of Islam, which has fallen a victim to their 
selfish aims and ambitions. 

"We disavow these men before Allah, and know that 



254 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

this is the word of truth — on which we live and die. How 
can we act otherwise, when we have before us instances 
and examples, which we cite for our Moslem brethren to 
ponder over? Thus, Jemal Pasha, the autocrat of Syria, 
ordered the inhabitants of that Moslem country to form 
amongst their womenfolk a women's society; then inti- 
mated that this society should get up a fete in his honour 
in their club. This was actually done, and he and some 
of the military and civil officials, together with others of 
his clique, whom he invited, attended the fete. The Mos- 
lem women, members of this society, actually received and 
honoured these guests ; and at the end some of them made 
speeches, declaimed poems, and sang songs before this 
crowd of men, as was reported at the time by the different 
newspapers of Syria with expressions of pride and admira- 
tion, to win the favour of the autocrat. 

"It will thus be clearly seen what are the designs of these 
usurpers on the Moslem law and Moslem customs; and 
this should serve as a warning to our Moslem brethren in 
Turkey, as well as in other parts of the world, so that they 
may not lend in any way encouragement to these auto- 
crats in their impious infringement of the laws of Allah 
and their insolent disregard of His commands, either for 
worldly fame or for material benefit, because it is idle for a 
creature to disobey his Creator. And he who is granted a 
power to put a stop to these sinful acts, either by his hand 
or tongue or his heart, it is his duty to use this power to 
that end. And whoever thinks that he can defend the 
audacity of these usurpers, let him come forward with his 
argument." 

"It must have been with feelings of profound satisfac- 
tion," writes Cassamally Jairazbhoy, Vice-President of the 
Bombay Branch of the Moslem League,^ "that all Moham- 
medans read the British announcement in regard to the 
Holy Places of Arabia, including the Holy Shrines of 
Mesopotamia and the Forts at Jedda. 

* The Stdcide of Turkey^ November, 1914. 



THE WORLD UNDER GERMAN RULE 255 

" 'These Holy Places and Jedda,' it said, 'will be immune 
from attack or molestation by the British Naval and Mili- 
tary forces so long as there is no interference with pil- 
grims from India to the Holy Places and Shrines in ques- 
tion. At the request of His Majesty's Government, the 
Governments of France and Russia have given them simi- 
lar assurances.' 

"For that assurance every true Mohammedan should 
praise God and bless the British Government, for now we 
know that, so long as England is able to fight, our Holy 
Places are safe from the sacrilegious hands of those bar- 
barian Germans, who have made the venerable Cathedrals 
of Belgium and France the particular object of their hatred 
and violence. What liberty of religion could Islam expect 
if Germany were to defeat the Allies? The ruins of Lou- 
vain and Rheims give the answer — None. It is Germany's 
creed that everything must be crushed to make way for 
German 'Civilisation.' Turkey is to-day a mere tool used 
to serve Germany's ends. Were those ends to be attained, 
to-morrow would witness the scornful crushing of Turkey 
by the Power whose ruler — Kaiser William — boasts that 
to him an oath is not sacred, and a treaty no more than 
a scrap of paper to be thrown away or torn up as may 
be convenient. 

"It will be seen from the foregoing how Germany reck- 
oned on stirring up a great Pan-Islamic movement that 
would prove a source of embarrassment to the British and 
the French. The result of all their intrigues has been a 
failure as complete as it is inglorious. In India, above all, 
Germany hoped to rouse Mohammedans against the Gov- 
ernment. But no people have been more sincere than the 
Mohammedans of this country in their devotion to the 
British Raj and in their offers of service against the enemy. 
The message to the Moslem world sent by His Highness 
the Aga Khan — a great descendant of the great Beni-Fati- 
mite Rulers of Egypt, who himself asked that he might 
serve in the ranks — still rings in our ears as a clarion call 
to duty, and as the expression of feelings which we en- 
thusiastically share. . . . 



256 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

"His Highness said — 

" 'With deep sorrow I find that the Turkish Government, 
having joined hands with Germany, acting under German 
orders, is madly attempting to wage a most unprovoked 
war against such mighty sovereigns as the King-Emperor 
and the Tsar of Russia. This is not the true and free will 
of the Sultan, but of the German officers and other non- 
Moslems, who have forced him to do their bidding. Ger- 
many and Austria have been no disinterested friends of 
Islam ; and, while one took Bosnia, the other has long been 
plotting to become suzerain of Asia Minor and Mesopo- 
tamia, including Kerbala, Nejef and Baghdad. If Germany 
succeeds, which Heaven forbid, Turkey will become only a 
vassal of Germany, and the Kaiser's resident will be the 
real ruler of Turkey and will control the Holy Cities. . .' 

"Turkey was the trustee of Islam, and the whole world 
was content to let her hold our Holy Cities in her keeping. 
Now that Trukey has so disastrously shown herself a tool 
in the German hands, she has not only ruined herself but 
has lost her position of trustee of Islam and evil will over- 
take her." 



XV 



THE GERMANS AS THEY SEE THEMSELVES AND AS 
OTHERS HAVE SEEN THEM 

It is hoped and believed that, as the war goes on, it is 
becoming more and more clearly understood throughout 
the neutral world that the question at stake in the present 
Struggle — incredible as it may seem — is whether the better 
or the baser instincts of man's nature shall prevail, whether 
humanity shall continue to proceed on its course towards 
a higher and yet higher ideal, or shall revert to its condition 
of many thousands of years ago, when its motives were 
actuated by nothing but the lower animal passions. By 
their own acts our adversaries are revealing that this is 
the true meaning of the struggle. 

"No, not Germany's enemies," said the American Pro- 
fessor Royce in a great speech on America's duty, "but 
Germany herself, her ministers, her submarine command- 
ers, have given us our principal picture of what the mili- 
tant Germany of the moment is, and of what Germany 
means for the future of international morality. . . . While 
the war lasts, and Belgium bleeds and mankind mourns, let 
us aid the allied enemies of Germany with sympathy, since 
the cause of the allied enemies of Germany is indeed the 
cause of mankind. . . . Let us do what we can to bring 
about at least a rupture of all diplomatic relations between 
our own Republic and these foes of mankind. ... If only 
the neutral nations had awakened at the beginning to 
the danger which threatened the universe, and had done 
their duty by assisting to avert it — but the very horror of 
it made them hold aloof." 

It has been argued, and is still argued by some, that the 
German nation is stricken only with a temporary madness, 

257 



258 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

but when peace is concluded their minds will become nor- 
mal, and that if they win, they will, in spite of their present 
blusterings, make a temperate use of their victories; that 
they do not seriously contemplate world-dominion. Bern- 
hardi himself has lately thought it wise to lull the fears 
of the neutrals by encouraging this view in his last work. 
But let us not be deceived a second time. Was it not gen- 
erally believed, in this country, as indeed everywhere else, 
that the doctrines set forth in the volumes from which we 
have quoted were merely the ravings of pedants or irre- 
sponsible atheists until we saw them put into practice in 
all their ghastliness and saw the "monstrous enter into the 
reality of life"? It may be that the military party is re- 
sponsible for the carrying out of these principles, but the 
military party is now the nation itself. The Emperor has 
said with pride that the German people is no longer a na- 
tion but an army.* 

If any among them are "born to honour" let them show 
it. How many of them have dared to refuse to murder the 
wounded or to hurl bombs on innocent women and children 
at the bidding of their officers? One instance only have I 
seen recorded, that of a patient in one of the French hos- 
pitals who stated that he had been shot in the back by his 
officer, an Oberlieutenant, for having refused to kill a 
wounded French Major.^ 

We know that there are Germans like the socialist 
Liebknecht and the authors of /'Accuse, and Gerade well 
ich Deutscher bin, who have boldly raised their voices 
— the first-named in the Reichstag itself — in condemnation 
of the guilt of their compatriots in tne matter of this war, 
and there may be others who are only deterred by 
fear from doing so lest they meet with the fate of the 

^ "The nation of poets and philosophers transformed into 
a nation in arms may rely upon the firm resolution to subdue 
all the enemies of Kultur and of German mentality. God is 
with us and with our just cause." — (Telegram to the Prussian 
Diet, February, 1915.) 

* The story is told by M. Paul Lordon in the Petit Journal, 
November, 1915. The man gave the name of the German officer 
and added that the brutality of his officers so disgusted him that 
"he hated them with all his soul." 



GERMANS AS THEY SEE THEMSELVES 259 

Pastor Franck, who was tried for high treason at Stettin 
for saying that the German sabres are stained with the 
blood of women and children; or with that of the Luxem- 
burg statesman, M. Emile Priin (Burgomaster of Chev- 
raux and a former Deputy), who was condemned by a 
German military tribunal to be imprisoned for three years 
in a cell of one and a half metres by two and a half, for 
having published and introduced into Germany a book en- 
titled The Widowhood of Truth. 

Liebknecht refused to vote for the War Credits. His 
protest was not allowed by the President to be read in the 
House; it was communicated to the German newspapers, 
but none of them dared to publish it. In it he said : "This 
war is not a defensive war for Germany. Its historical 
character and the succession of events forbid us to trust 
in a capitalist Government when it declares it is asking for 
credits for the defence of the Fatherland. ... I protest 
against this war, against those v/ho are responsible for it 
and those who are conducting it. ... I protest against the 
schemes of annexation, against the violation of the neu- 
trality of Belgium and Luxemburg, against the military 
dictatorship, against the complete disregard of social and 
political duties of which the Government and the dominant 
classes are again to-day guilty." — (Berlin, December 2, 
1914.) 

The following appeal was addressed by the German 
Humanity League to foreign Socialists, and published in 
the Press: — 

"Dear Comrades, 

"On the eve of a New Year which opens on scenes 
of foul and ruthless crimes, unparalleled even in the mas- 
sacre rolls of our nation's infamous accomplices at Constan- 
tinople, we appeal to our brethren on the Continent of 
Europe and in the United States of America, not to hide 
themselves behind the screen of neutrality. 

"We are face to face with the enemies of mankind. The 
German nation, driven into a wicked war by the Kaiser 
and his military entourage, cajoled by perjured statesmen 
in the Reichstag and by false records circulated in every 



260 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

State in order to deceive our compatriots, has recklessly 
hurled itself blindfolded against forces which, sustained by 
indisputable moral considerations, show no signs of weak- 
ening in their determination to expel from Belgium the 
troops which have covered her habitations with blood and 
irreparably injured an innocent nation our rulers had sworn 
to protect. 

"We ask you to remember that the territory of no Ger- 
man State has been menaced by the Allies, who are law- 
fully and honourably defending the plain rights of the 
cruelly outraged Belgians. 

"Fellow-workers, can you longer remain idle and silent 
spectators of these stupendous crimes? Are you for ever 
to be dumb in view of the awful scenes of carnage in Flan- 
ders, in Brabant, in Alsace, and in Lorraine? Do you not 
see, amid the maiming and slaughter of innocent, unarmed 
old men, women, children and infants at the breast, that 
the Kaiser has covered our nation with imperishable in- 
famy, and that the toll of war means the sacrifice of the 
precious lives of toilers and wage-earners in a devilish cam- 
paign, barbarous in its methods upon sea as upon land? 

"Already in five months our homes, our trade, our en- 
terprises have been maimed for at least fifty years; loss 
of life and economic devastation will scourge the Father- 
land for a century. We know from authentic intelligence 
which reaches us that a restless, indignant and deceived 
democracy now undergoing privations and nursing its 
griefs, cannot be restrained by force from active protest; 
and we most earnestly appeal to every comrade, who cares 
for the maintenance of international obligations, to strive 
his utmost to crush and sweep away for ever the domina- 
tion of Prussian militarism within Germany, which, by its 
conspiracy against humanity, has disgraced and humiliated 
our nation in the eyes of the civilised world. 

"Karl Bernstein, Jacob Mamdisdorf, 

Emil Gott, Conrad Sch(wabe, 

GusTAVE OcHS, Ernest Schuster, 

Franz Gausen, Albrecht Zettel." * 

* The Morning Post, December 30, 1914. 



GERMANS AS THEY SEE THEMSELVES 261 

But in spite of these considerations and admissions, we 
cannot but concur with Professor Morgan when he says that 
"to regard Germany as the misguided pupil of a military 
caste which alone stands in the way of her reformation 
seems to him to ignore the volume of evidence as to the 
complicity of officers and men in these orgies of outrage. 
, . . For is it reasonable to suppose that the kind of teach- 
ing which has made Clausewitz, Treitschke and Bernhardi 
the gospel of the German people, and has found authorita- 
tive expression in the German War Book, could have com- 
manded the prestige which it does command in Germany if 
it had not found a people apt and eager by temperament to 
receive it?" ^ Elsewhere Professor Morgan writes: "It is 
the fondest of delusions to imagine that all this blood-guilt- 
iness is confined to the German Government and the Gen- 
eral Staff. The whole people is stained with it. The innu- 
merable diaries of common soldiers in the ranks which I 
have read betray a common sentiment of hate, rapine and 
ferocious cruelty. Again and again English soldiers have 
told me how their German captors delighted to offer them 
food in their famished state and then to snatch it away 
again. The progress of French, British and Russian pris- 
oners, civil as well as military, through Germany has been 
a veritable Calvary. The helplessness which in others 
would excite forbearance if not pity has in the German 
populace provoked only derision and insult. The 'old 
gentleman with a grey beard and gold spectacles,' who 
broke his umbrella over the back of a Russian lady (the 
wife of a diplomatist) ; the loafers who boarded a train and 
under the eyes of the indulgent sentries poked their fingers 
in the blind eye of a wounded Irishman who had had half 
his face shot away; the men and women who spat upon 
helpless prisoners and threatened them with death; the 
guards who prodded them with bayonets, worried them with 
dogs, and despatched those who could not keep up — these 
were not a Prussian caste, but the German people. What 
is to be thought of a people, one of whose leading journals 
publishes with approval the letter of a German officer 
describing 'the brilliant idea (ein guter Gedanke) which 

* German Atrocities, p. 33. 



262 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

inspired him to place civilians on chairs in the middle of 
the street of a town attacked by the French and use them 
as a screen for his men in spite of their 'prayers of an- 
guish.' " 1 

Some of their own most distinguished writers have 
spoken of their compatriots in far from complimentary 
terms. "A comparison of the German people with other 
peoples," says Goethe, "awakens painful feelings from 
which I have tried to escape by every possible means." ^ 
Heine is more severe : "As to Prussians, Nature has made 
them stupid and Science has rendered them malicious." * 
Hirschel declares that : "There is no absurdity which a 
German has not advanced as a theory" ^ ; while Schopen- 
hauer, in his Memorabilien, delivers himself as follows: 
"In anticipation of my death I make this confession, that 
I despise the German nation on account of its infinite stu- 
pidity, and I blush to belong to it." ^ 

And the methods of war employed by the German peo- 
ple in the earlier periods of their history, and the principles 
which guided their conduct, do not seem to have greatly 
differed from those which have staggered the world to- 
day. 

"Since they were first heard of in history," says Bern- 
hardi,^ "they have proved themselves to be a nation prac- 
tising the highest form of civilisation, indeed they are 
the people civilised par excellence — das Kulturvolk Kar^ 

The Roman and Greek writers do not seem to bear 
this out. "What," asks Nazarius, "shall I say of the 
Bructeri, the Chamevi, the Cherusci, the Vangiones, the 
Alamanni and the Tubantes [German tribes] ? . . . The 
very pronunciation of their names fills us with a sense 

* German Atrocities, pp. 24-25. 

" "Conversations with Eckermann," quoted in Paroles Alle- 
mandcs, p. 55. 

* Quoted ibid., p. 83. * Ibid., p. 32, ^ Ibid., p. 146. 

* Unsere Zukunft, "Ein Mahnwort an das deutsche Volk," 1912, 
p. II. 



GERMANS AS THEY SEE THEMSELVES 263 

of horror at the immensity of their barbarism." ^ Tacitus 
tells us that all the tribes of their ancestors were wont to 
meet together in a sacred, forest, and "after publicly 
offering up a human life, they celebrate the grim initiation 
of their barbarian rites" ^ ; and Procopius, speaking of 
them at a later period, says that "these barbarians, 
though they have become Christians, retain most of their 
ancient creed, immolating human beings and performing 
other unholy sacrifices by which they predict the future." ^ 
Ammianus Marcellinus describes them in battle as "rush- 
ing forward roaring like wild beasts, their long shaggy hair, 
while they raged in this inhuman fashion, being lifted 
in the wind, and their eyes blazing with fury." * Pompo- 
nius Mela speaks of the "innate savagery" of the Germans 
of his day, and their lust for war and plunder. "With 
them," he says, "might is right, so much so that they are 
not even ashamed to rob and murder," He adds that 
they are "kind to their guests ^ and gentle with sup- 
pliants" — but these latter qualities they do not exer- 
cise to-day, if we may judge by the fate of those who 
have fallen into their hands during this war*^ — and 

^ Paneg. viii. i8. " Germania, xxxix. 

* The Gothic Wars, ii. 25. * xii. 36. 

"Many of the ancient writers testify to this. "The Franks 
are liars, but they are hospitable/' writes Salviantis (De guber- 
natione Dei, vii. 64). The Franks were a confederation of Ger- 
man tribes. 

"The following incident is recorded in Germany's Great Lie, 
pp. 160-1. It concerns the treatment of a British Consul, 
"who comes of a family famous in our Diplomatic Service 
at one of the chief sea-ports of Germany. He and his wife and 
his daughter were invited by one of the chief officials to a 
friendly dinner. While they were at dinner a man came 
in with a letter. The official smiled and tossed off a glass of 
champagne; then he smiled again and tossed off another 
glass of champagne; then he smiled again and tossed off a 
third glass. By that time he was thoroughly excited and cried 
out : 'Yes, the best of news ! War is declared.' Then he 
turned to the Consul and his wife and daughter and called them 
dogs and pigs and reptiles, and rang the bell and sent 
for soldiers, who dragged them away and spat all over the Consul's 
wife. They took them into a filthy room with thieves and 



264 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

that "they are coarse and uncultured in their way of 
living." * 

"But this people," wrote Velleius Paterculus, "are sav- 
age to a degree almost inconceivable to any one who has 
not had actual experience of them ^ and are, withal, a 
race born to deceit {natiim mendacio genits)."^ The 
Goths, Procopius tells us, fearing an attack by the Roman 
General Belisarius, "thought of obtaining assistance from 
some of the other barbarians, but they were careful not to 
call in the Germans, having already had experience of the 
craft and treachery of that race."^ 

Elsewhere the same writer speaks of the Franks as "of 
all men the most prone to break faith," and quotes a letter 
written by Belisarius to Theudibert, reminding him that to 
break an oath which was embodied in writing — as he had 
done — was "disgraceful even in the most dishonourable of 
men." ""' "If a Frank perjure himself," says Salvianus, 

criminals. They left them there for two days without any food 
or water or sanitary arrangements. Then they dragged them 
out again and pushed them into a train, still without any food 
or drink. The train went on and on, until they were bundled 
out at a station to change trains. The daughter was by this 
time so exhausted that she was nearly dying. Looking for some 
one to save her life, she saw a Red Cross nurse attending to 
some one and implored her to give her a drink of water. The Ger- 
man nurse turned round and called them 'Dogs of English' and 
said that she would rather die than do it." 

^De Situ Orbis, III. 3. 

The original passage runs as follows: "Qui habitant immanes 
sunt animis atque corporibus, et ad insitam feritatem vaste 
utraque exercent, bellando animos, corpore adsuetudine labore 
maxime frigoris. . . . Bella cum finitimis gerunt, causas eorum 
ex libidine arcessunt, neque imperitandi prolatandique quae possi- 
dent, nam ne ilia quidem enixe colunt, sed ut circa ipsos quae 
jacent vasta sint. lus in viribus habent, adeo ut ne latrocinii qui- 
dem pudeat, tantum hospitibus boni, mitesque supplicibus. Victu 
ita asperi incultique." 

^ Or as The Evening Standard (December 27, 1915) remarked 
of its own initiative : "It is only those who really know the 
German who properly appreciate his craftiness." 

'Hist, Rom. II. 118. 

* The Gothic Wars, ii. 22. 

"Ibid., ii. 25. 



GERMANS AS THEY SEE THEMSELVES 265 

"it is nothing new to him, seeing that he only looks upon 
perjury as another form of speech and in no way a crime." ^ 
Florus tells of the treachery by which Arminius (Her- 
mann) won his victory over Varus and the atrocities sub- 
sequently committed by the German troops: "Never was 
slaughter more bloody than that which was made of the 
Romans among the marshes and woods. ... Of some they 
gouged out the eyes; of others they cut off the hands; 
of one the mouth was sewed up after his tongue had been 
cut out, which, one of the savages, holding in his hand, 
cried out : 'At last, viper, cease to hiss !' " ^ And Tacitus 
thus describes the visit of Germanicus to the same spot 
six years later : "Fragments of weapons and limbs of 
horses were lying about; and there were human heads 
fixed to the trunks of trees. In groves close by were the 
barbarian altars on which the Tribunes and Centurions 
of the first rank had been immolated. And survivors of 
the disaster , . . told how many gibbets had been set 
up, and how many pits were dug for the captives. . . . 
And so, six years after this terrible event, the Roman 
army, standing on the spot, proceeded with mixed feelings 
of sorrow and anger and with ever-growing indignation 
against the enemy, to bury the bones of the three legions." ^ 

^De guhernatione Dei, vr. 65. 

Mv. 12. 

^Annals, i. 61-2. According to the Roman historians, Ar- 
minius was invested by the Senate with the title "Amicus" on 
account of the friendship he professed for the Roman people. 
But he had long been secretly stirring up some of the German 
tribes to rebellion. When the Roman General, Varus, decided 
to march against these tribes, Arminius promised to meet him 
at Teutoburger Forest and support the attack. But no sooner 
did Varus arrive than Arminius led a furious assault against 
the Roman legions and cut them to pieces. Some time 
later a letter was received by the Roman Senate from one of his 
followers, Adgandestrius, offering to procure his death if poison 
were sent for the purpose of the murder, but a reply was given 
to him to the effect that the Roman people took vengeance on 
their enemies not by treachery or by any other secret measure, 
but openly by force of arms. He (Arminius) afterwards be- 
trayed and ravished the daughter of his fellow-countryman 
Segestes, and himself fell a victim to the treachery of his kinsmen, 



^66 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

"Who would not be indignant," said a Roman General 
to some of his troops, who wished to enrich themselves 
with plunder, "if it were said that while we have the name 
of Romans, we do the deeds of Germans." ^ 

Gallic, Batavian and German Generals fighting against 
the Romans are said by Tacitus to have encouraged their 
respective troops by using the incentives most in keeping 
with their several characters. The Gauls were urged to 
fight for freedom, the Batavians for immortal glory, and 
the Germans for loot.^ 

It was thanks to their greed for plunder, as is related by 
Tacitus, that the army of the Roman General, Germanicus, 
was saved from destruction.^ 

"It is the greatest glory," says Csesar, "to the several 
[German] States to have as wide deserts as possible around 
them, their frontiers having been laid waste. They con- 
sider it to be a distinctive mark of their prowess that their 
neighbours should be driven out of their lands." * 

"Robberies," he adds, "which are committed beyond the 
bounds of the State, are considered no infamy. Indeed, 
they pretend that such acts are committed for the purpose 
of disciplining their youth and preventing sloth." ^ 

The lust for war of the ancient Germans has been men- 
tioned by many writers. "Their whole life is spent in 
hunting and in the pursuit of the military art," says 
Caesar ^ ; and Tacitus states that they carried their arms 
wherever they went — ever ready, no doubt, to pick a quar- 
rel or fight a duel. The carousals at which they drank 
their beer often led to brawls. "You will not so readily 
persuade them to till the land and to wait for the year's 

but the Roman historian pays a tribute to his patriotism. — 
Annals, i. 58 and ii. 88. He is Germany's great hero to this day, 
and a colossal statue has been raised to him on the spot where 
his treachery against the Roman legions was consummated. 

^ Dion Cassius, Roman History, xii. 30-31. 

"Hist. iv. 78. ^Annals, i. 65. 

* De Bella Gallico, vi. 23. Compare the final words of the 
"Hymn of Hate," quoted above, p. 138, "Transform the neigh- 
bouring countries into deserts." 

^Ibid. "Ibid., i. 21. 



GERMANS AS THEY SEE THEMSELVES 26T 

harvests as to challenge an enemy and earn themselves 
wounds. It seems to them to show a want of energy to 
get with the sweating of your brow what you can obtain 
by the shedding of your blood." ^ 

Another writer speaks of the "eternal hatred, the inexpi- 
able fury of this race" {illius gentis odia perpetua et inex- 
piabiles ircs).^ 

Their expedients in preparing for war were no less simi- 
lar to those of the present day than were their methods of 
conducting it. "The German carefully prepared all the 
details of his aggression. Ariovistus, before going to war 
with Caesar, had solicited and obtained at Rome the title 
of The Ally of the Roman People. Arminius, the con- 
queror of Varus at Teutoburg, resided for a long time at 
Rome and made friends there whilst he was studying the 
tactics and organisation of his future adversaries, and had 
been invested with the dignity of a Roman knight. A 
treaty, made by Marcus Aurelius with the Quadi, provides 
that they must close the frontier of the Empire against 
the Marcomanni, a German confederation north of the Dan- 
ube, because, as the treaty says, 'the Germans who enter 
upon Roman territory on the pretext of trading there come 
solely for the purpose of spying.' " ^ . . . 

"In view of our pillaged and devastated dwellings," 
writes M. Flavier Brenier,* "of our civil population carried 
away into captivity, our towns bombarded and burnt when 

* Germania, xiv. See also Annals, xiii. 57. They carried their 
arms with them to their graves and continued their battles in 
Walhalla. 

German is by some believed to be equivalent to warman or 
warrior (cf. French guerre). The French expression "une 
querelle d'allemand" is used idiomatically of a groundless 
quarrel. 

Masks, representing the warlike features of the Germans, 
were made by the Romans of pottery and used for frightening 
children. Their huge stature made them "terrible to look at" 
{Annals, ii. 14). Their great prototype, King Teutoboch, was 
accustomed to bestride four and even six horses at a time (Florus, 
iii. 4). 

^Quoted by Zeller, Origines de VAllemagne, 1^72, p. 221. 

^ Ibid., p. 194. * Le Vieux Dieu Allemand, p. 36. 



268 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

the enemy is compelled to evacuate them, it is worth re- 
reading this passage of an old Latin author : 'The barba- 
rians who forced their way across the Rhine loaded their 
carts with plate, with clothing and stolen carpets and car- 
ried the population into slavery that they might use them 
for their own purposes, and they burnt all the houses that 
they could not inhabit.' " ^ 

The Roman view of the German character is summed 
up by Zeller as follows: "There is no such thing as a 
lasting treaty with these barbarians. They dethrone the 
kings which are given them and set up others in their places ; 
they receive money or lands from their enemies or even 
their own allies as the price of peace, and immediately after- 
wards break that peace ; Marcus Aurelius had not the time 
to have a medal struck announcing to the world the con- 
clusion of a permanent peace with the Germans before it 
was violated by them. 

"The Germans never take service in the Roman armies 
except for the purpose of learning how to fight them ; they 
never go to carry on trade in the Roman provinces ex- 
cept for the purpose of spying; they never swear an oath 
to the Romans without the intention of breaking it; they 
never sign a peace except with the object of preparing 
for war; they make no use of money paid them except 
to procure arms with it; they accept a footing in the Em- 
pire only that they may be in a better position to lay it 
waste. For them there is no promise given to the enemy 
outside the frontier that binds, no engagement, no moral 
or international law such as was respected by the nations 
of classical antiquity even in time of war. Against his 

* Origines de VAUemagne, p. 270. "The authentic accounts 
of excesses committed during the war of 1870 alone would 
fill a library. 'For many Germans,' wrote Nietzsche, 'this was 
a voyage into a more elegant hemisphere.' The armies were 'fol- 
lowed by wagons heaped full of our furniture, our pictures, the 
treasures of our homes, which became articles of commerce. This 
war had the character of the invasions of antiquity." — General 
Ambert (Recits militaires, vol. ii. p. 56), quoted by Charles Andler 
in Frightfulness in Theory and Practice, English translation 
(Fisher Unwin), p. 37. 



GERMANS AS THEY SEE THEMSELVES 269 

neighbour, who is also his enemy, the German considers 
everything to be lawful. He can commit no crime (nullam 
infamiam). Might with him is right," ^ 

"A German historian," writes Mr. J. M. Robertson, "of 
the downfall of the Mediterranean civilisation has made a 
collection of Greek and Roman testimonies ^ which leaves 
nothing to be desired in point of completeness. 'German 
faithlessness became almost proverbial with the Romans.' ^ 
'The habit of the Franks was with smiling mouth to }3reak 
their pledged faith'*; th^y were 'that shifty and treacher- 
ous barbarian people.' To break the peace and break the 
pact : to break a treaty as soon as it was made — these are 
the practices of the Germanic peoples in their dealings with 
the Romans. For Procopius the Franks were 'the most 
faithless people in the world' ; and for Velleius Paterculus 
they were 'a race of born liars.' And even among the Ger- 
mans themselves there was no valid pledge without an oath 
— ohne Eid keine Verpflichtung.^ 

"Following the minute account of Felix Dahn,® an able 
Austrian critic of the race-gospel has shown that in every 
section of the Teutonic invaders of the South after the 
fall of the Roman Empire the standard of honour of the 
leaders and kings was on a par with that of Dahomey, 
and their familiar crimes an anticipation of those of the 
mediaeval Turks. Fratricide and parricide and filicide, 
murders of women as of men, are the constant notes of the 
regal history'''; and the upper class life of Franks and 

^ Origines de V Allemagne , p. 194. The principal references 
are to Nazarius, Paneg. Vit.; Eumenius; Eutropius; Julius Capi- 
tolinus; Amm. Marcellinus. 

"0. Seeck, Geschichte des Untergangs der antiken Welt, 

1895. 
^Ibid., i. 189. 

* "Quibus familiare est ridendo fidem frangere" (Flavius 
Vopiscus in Proculo). 

* Lamprecht, Deutsche Geschichte, i. 181 -2. 

' Urgeschichte der germanischen und romanischen Volker, 4 Bde. 
1881-1889. 

^ The reader need only cast a glance at Gregory of Tours' 
Historia Francorum to satisfy himself that there is no exaggera- 
tion in this statement. 



270 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

Langobards, Goths and Vandals, is on the same level of 
treachery, debauchery and savagery." ^ 

As to the German soldier of the Middle Ages, we have 
the testimony of Froissart, in the following account of the 
coming to Paris of the Constable of France, who had just 
defeated the English. "He came," says Froissart, "accom- 
panied by the Lord de Clisson and bringing with them the 
greater part of the prisoners, to whom they behaved very 
handsomely, allowing them to go at large on their parole 
for their ransom. They neither shut them up in prison nor 
put on shackles and fetters, as the Germans do in order 
to obtain a heavier ransom. Curses on them for it. These 
people are without pity or honour, and they ought never 
to receive quarters. The French entertained their prison- 
ers well, and ransomed them courteously without being too 
hard with them." ^ This was in 1370. 

Botta, in his history of the American War of Independ- 
ence, speaking of the brutality of the German mercenary 
troops in the British army, says — 

"The Hessians, as if they believed themselves released 
from all respect for humanity and justice, knew no other 
mode of making war but that of carrying devastation into 
the midst of all the property, public and private, of their 
adversaries. It was affirmed that this rapacious soldiery 
had so burdened themselves with booty as to become al- 
most incapable of service. ... It was a terrible and la- 
mentable spectacle to behold these fertile fields covered 
with ashes and with ruins. Friends and foes, Republicans 
and Loyalists, all shared a common fate; wives and 
daughters suffered violence in their homes and even before 
the eyes of their husbands and fathers ; many fled into 
the forests, but could find no refuge even there from the 
brutal rage of these barbarians who pursued them. The 
houses were either burnt or demolished; the cattle either 
driven off or killed ; nothing escaped their thirst for devas- 
tation. The Hessian General Heister, far from endeavour- 

* The Germans, by the Right Hon. J. M. Robertson, M.P., 1916, 
pp. 98-9. 

' Froissart's Chronicles, chapter ccxcii. Translation by Thomas 
Johnes, 1812. 



GERMANS AS THEY SEE THEMSELVES 271 

ing to repress this licentious soldiery, seemed to have given 
them a free rein. The English General wished, but had 
not the power, to curb them.'' ^ 

With reference to the wars of 1814-1815 Andler writes — 

"Let us recall the fifteen Frenchmen who at Bautzen 
(on a day of bloody victory), being surprised within a 
house, demanded quarter on their knees. The infuriated 
Prussians flung them living from the windows, and when 
the survivors cried out in their agony, their skulls were 
broken by blows from the butt-end of rifles. At Leipzig^ 
in the houses, a host of Frenchmen who had thrown down 
their arms were massacred. After Waterloo the Prussians 
of Gneisenau's command slaughtered disarmed Frenchmen 
by whole battalions. . . ." ^ 

The philosopher, Steffens, officer of the Landwchr in 
1 814, saw them at work during a whole winter. He saw 
"incendiarism almost everywhere, magnificent villages pil- 
laged. . . ." ^ Similar stories are told of their conduct 
during the Franco-Prussian War, but it is unnecessary to 
multiply them. They may be read in Andler ^ and in other 
writers, and their habitual contempt for treaties may be 
studied throughout their history. 

An instance of Kitltur at home is given by Hans 
Pommer — 

'T have myself assisted, and more than once, at scenes 
of Vandalism which would defy all description. During a 
farewell dinner offered by the officers of the camp at 
Elserhorn to a division of cavalry I was the eyewitness of 
a mad frenzy which resulted not only in the destruction 
of all tlie plate, but the statues, tables and chairs of the 
hall where the banquet was held, and a prince of the blood 
was amongst them. We must confess that the varnish of 
civilisation has only very thinly covered the high ranks 
of our society. The least excess in the consumption of 
alcoholic drinks is sufficient to transform into veritable 

^ Storia de la Giierra Americana, Botta. Translation by G. A. 
Otis, 1826. 
' F rightfulness, English translation, p. 32. 

* Was Ich Erlebte, 1843, vol. viii. pp. 35, 37, 41, 43 and passim. 

* Fright fulness, chap. iii. 



272 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

barbarians the representatives of one of the human races 
most proud in the consciousness of their superiority, and 
barbarians who, far from feeling any regret for the dis- 
graceful exploits that follow on the consumption, are proud 
of them. Try to imagine the terrible impression that must 
be produced by the spectacle of this horde giving themselves 
up without any kind of restraint to this 'furor Teutonicus' ; 
and the eyewitnesses of such a scene will undoubtedly re- 
count it to their comrades, so that such a drama as this, 
where the actors are civilised men turned into savages, 
will not remain hidden within the four walls surrounding 
a meeting of officers. Surely it is fully time that among 
German officers an end should be put to the passion for 
drinking, and in particular that the ardour of such a pas- 
sion should cease to be honoured as the noblest of manly 
virtues." ^ 

The reader will jfind a detailed arraignment of the inner 
life of the Germans in a volume of 260 pages by Henry de 
Halsalle.^ We will content ourselves with extracting from 
it the following comparative statistics of the worst forms 
of crime committed in Germany and England during a 
period of ten years. 





Gertnany 


England 




1897-1907 


1900-10 


Murder 


350 


97 


Incest 


573 


56 


Rapes ..... 


9,381 


216 


Unnatural Crimes 


841 


290 


Malicious and Felonious Wounding- 


172,153 


1,262 


Malicious Damage to Property . 


25,759 


358 


Arson 


610 


278 




209.667 


2,557 









* Zwansig Jahre als InfanterieoMzier in den Reichslanden, 
Frankfort, 1914 (L'Allemagne et le Droit des Gens, p. 145). 

References to the intemperate habits of the Germans are to be 
found in ancient Greek and Latin writers, as well as in later his- 
torians. Tacitus remarks, in Germania (XXII.), that to con- 
tinue drinking day and night is a reproach to none of them ("Diem 
noctemque continuare potando nulli probrum"). 

"Degenerate Germany. 



GERMANS AS THEY SEE THEMSELVES 273 

In a leaflet published in the United States, Mr. George 
L. Fox, Principal of the University's School, Newhaven, 
Connecticut, makes the following comparison of crime in 
the same countries: — 

"The population of Germany Is to that of England as 
5 to 3. As to crime, the proportion of bigamy is i to 2 
nearly; in incest about 13 to i ; in procuring it is 264 to i ; 
in procuring abortions it is 29 to i ; in unnatural offences 
it is 7 to I ; in rape and other sexual crimes it is about 
9 to I ; in murder, manslaughter and other death-causing 
crimes it is 5 to i ; in arson it is about 4 to i. With regard 
to divorces it is 22 to i. As to illegitimate births it is 
5 to I. The number of suicides is four times as great as 
in England." 

Such are the facts about German Kultur. It may inter- 
est the reader to compare them with other pretensions of 
German writers similar to that of Bernhardi quoted above. 

**We have entered into the war with joyful and pure 
hearts permeated with the aspirations of our national fu- 
ture. That future we will fill with the blossoms of our 
culture; it is assured to us by the desire that inspires and 
haunts all Germans to raise the world to full nobleness and 
perfection." ^ 

"In the hour of Germany's victory all people will realise 
that the German Kultur is the highest and most indispen- 
sable part of universal culture." ^ 

"Germany must, and desires, to remain alone. The Ger- 
mans are the elect people of the earth. They will accom- 
plish their destiny, which is to rule the world and to guide 
the other nations for the happiness of humanity." ^ 

"We would see every monument, every picture, utterly 
destroyed rather than that the glorious work given to the 
German race should be hindered by so much as one hour's 
avoidable delay. The world can be revitalised, society 

* Lamprecht. 

^O. Gierke, quoted in the Revue de Paris, March 15, 1915, 
p. 286. 

^ Professor von Seyden in the Frankfurter Zeitung. 



'274 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

ennobled and refined only through the German spirit. The 
world must, for its own salvation, be Germanised." ^ 

"We, in Germany, have the firm conviction that it is 
not for our own independence alone that we are fighting 
in this war, but for the preservation of the culture and 
freedom of all peoples." ^ 

"A European plot of lies and calumnies has been woven 
around us; for our part we are true; our characteristics 
are humanity, gentleness, conscientiousness, the Christian 
virtues. In a world of wickedness we represent love, and 
God is with us." ^ 

"The Southern peoples are children of the moment; the 
Teutonic live in the things which lie beyond the world, in 
the infinite and the ineffable." ^ (One wishes they could 
remain there!) 

"Our German people will be the granite-block on which 
the good God may complete His work of civilising the 
world. Then will be realised the word of the poet who 
said : 'The world will one day be cured by the German 
character.' " ^ 

The hordes which overran Europe in earlier days at least 
made no such pretences as these. They were guided by 
their instincts, and in some cases they were endowed 
with qualities destined to bring light out of the very 

* From the Kreuzzeitung; quoted in A Textbook of the War 
for Americans. We constantly read in the German press such 
expressions as "The Kingdom of Heaven is centred in the German 
soul" {Berliner Post). 

^ Professor Delbriick in Germany's Answer. "This is more 
than the world asks at the Kaiser's hand," remarks the American 
essayist, Miss Agnes Repplier". "Most nations prefer to look 
after their own culture and freedom in the fashion which suits 
them best. And if the present condition of Belgium, starved, 
outraged, broken on the wheel, is a sample of the culture and 
freedom which are Germany's gifts, we Americans pray heaven 
to preserve us in ignorance and slavery." — A Textbook of the 
War for Americans, p. 263. 

* Professor Lasson. Letter published in the Amsterdammer, 
a Dutch weekly review, October 11, 1914. 

* Professor Miinsterburg, in his Textbook of Psychology. 
"The Kaiser in a speecli at Miinster, August 31, 1907. 



GERMANS AS THEY SEE THEMSELVES 275 

darkness in which they temporarily enveloped the areas 
they invaded; but these people openly and consciously pre- 
sent us with a gospel of dirt which they say it is their mis- 
sion to spread over the universe. 

There is one virtue which no one will deny the German 
people. They are eminently thorough in everything they 
do. A remarkable instance of this is noted by the American 
Professor Weeks, with reference to their preparations for 
the present war. "The German military authorities," he 
remarks, "even foresaw the need of denying atrocities, as 
is evinced by a manual called The Military Interpreter, 2nd 
edition, Berlin, 1906; publisher, A. Bath. The author is 
Captain von Scharfenort, an official of the Military De- 
partment. The manual, among many useful formulae, of- 
fers a model letter of protest against an accusation of atroc- 
ities. This suggestive document is entitled. Letter to the 
Commander-in-Chief of the Hostile Army, and commences 
thus : — 

" 'In a circular letter of the Minister of Foreign Affairs 
you have reproached the German troops with numerous 
violations of international custom. 

" 'According to you, German troops have been guilty 
of acts of hostility against ambulances; they are said to 
have made prisoner, M. A., in the midst of an ambulance 
corps organised by him; they are accused of having made 
use of explosive bullets, of having compelled peasants in 
the vicinity of S. to dig trenches under fire; they are ac- 
cused of having attempted to transport provision and muni- 
tion trains and caissons by protecting them with the con- 
ventional sign of Geneva; finally, a physician who was 
caring for a wounded Prussian soldier is said to have been 
killed by him. ... 

" 'Out of regard for the Powers which adhered to the 
Convention of Geneva and the declaration of St. Peters- 
burg of November 29 (nth December), 1868, I add here 
and I affirm that the said-mentioned Convention has been 
observed by the German troops in the most scrupulous 
manner,' etc." 

"Yes," Professor Weeks adds, "the German military 



276 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

authorities foresaw everything — except that some of their 
soldiers' diaries would be captured." ^ 

It is barely conceivable that any one should wish to be- 
long to a nation which must well-nigh hold the record for 
crime, and whose political system avowedly inculcates blind 
obedience to a State which recognises no moral law. On 
the contrary, it is not surprising that large numbers of 
German citizens quit their Fatherland to become the sub- 
jects of foreign Powers. In the year 1913, 412 Germans 
obtained certificates of naturalisation in Great Britain 
alone, apart from the colonies, as against 30 Frenchmen 
and 13 Italians. That the Germans in London are content 
under the Government of their adopted country is proved 
by the following address which was presented to Her Maj- 
esty, Queen Victoria, on the occasion of the Diamond Jubi- 
lee in 1897, by representatives of German churches, insti- 
tutions and societies domiciled in London — 

"We are deeply grateful that, during the sixty years 
which have elapsed since Your Majesty's accession to the 
Throne, Germans residing in Great Britain have been able 
to follow their occupations in absolute freedom and in 
friendly intercourse with all classes, under the care of Your 
Majesty's Government and protected by the laws of the 
land." 

"One of the most curious things to be noted," writes 
an American, "in a general survey of the world, is that 
among all the millions of Germans who have left the 
Fatherland since 1848 for this country so very few of them 
ever go back to Germany. . . . The Germans in America 
are among the best, sanest and most valuable of our 
citizens, but the Germans are of all people the least 
tenacious of their nationality. In this country, the 
English, Scotch, and even the Irish speak of 'home' for 
generations. The Scandinavians charter ships to go 
'home' to spend their Christmas; numbers of them who 
prosper go back to pass their old age. The Slavs go back 
by thousands, and have carried the English language 

^Professor Raymond Weeks of Columbia University quoted in 
A Textbook of the War for Americans, p. 104. 



GERMANS AS THEY SEE THEMSELVES 277 

with them, so much so that in one case an election for the 
Reichsrath in Austria was conducted in that language. The 
Italians go back by tens of thousands, and you can hardly 
find a town in Italy in which some one is not living in a 
little vineyard, or villino, who made his money in America. 
But, as I have said, the Germans practically never go back. 
They become Americans, just as they become Australians 
in Australia, where they are now supporting their new 
country aga: .st the old ; or they become Brazilians, Chil- 
ians, Central Americans, even Haitians, and their choco- 
late-coloured children are outside the German culture en- 
tirely." 1 

With reference to the present crisis another American 
writes: "If the German-Americans are consumed with 
love for their Fatherland, and for their Fatherland alone, 
why, we wonder, did they not stay upon that sacred soil? 
This pleasure and privilege might have been theirs without 
the asking, and they resigned it as alacritously as though 
paternal rule and military service found no favour in their 
eyes. Why, when they came to the United States, did they 
not remain German citizens, and liable to be summoned 
to their country's aid, instead of hastening to swear all 
allegiance to a Constitution which they regard only as a 
convenience and a protection and inferior to their own? 
Why, when the declaration of war found them in Munich 
or Frankfort or Berlin did they scuttle home as fast as 
ships could carry them, clamorously declaring themselves 

^Frederick W. Whitridge, One American's Opinion of the 
European War, pp. i6, 17. 

The same writer remarks : "In a large acquaintance, I 
have heard of only one instance where a German, who had 
prospered, returned to pass his old age at home. That was 
the case of a brewer who had made a few hundred thousand 
dollars and then built for himself a house in the German district 
whence he had emigrated, such as his boyhood's fancy had 
pictured he would have in his old age, and into that house he 
moved to end his days. At the end of two months he locked 
the front door, and said, 'By God ! I can't stand it another minute/ 
and came back to his place in the Middle West. He did not like 
what he thought was the continual interference and meddling in 
his private affairs." 



278 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

American citizens in Germany, and singing the Wacht 
am Rhein with ever-increasing fervour as they neared 
the friendly shores of New York? Why, instead of 
forming poHtical parties to 'support all endeavours in the 
interests of Germanism' — which is a denial of neutrality 
and citizenship — do they not go bravely back and strike 
one honest blow in open battle for their imperilled Father- 
land? 

"The trenches of Flanders and the snowfields of Poland 
await these loyal sons of Germany, and, while many dry 
eyes will witness their departure, we owe and give unfalter- 
ing respect to men gallant enough to lay down their lives 
for their country." ^ 

When, some years ago, the writer complimented a gen- 
tleman whom he believed to be a German residing in Aus- 
tria on his fluency in English, he quickly replied : "But I 
am an Englishman. I and my son gave up our German 
nationality that we might become free men. We have 
found freedom and justice in England." It is the English- 
man's love of freedom and of justice, no less than his sense 
of duty and of honour that brought him in 1914, as they 
have often brought him before, to the assistance of a 
people wantonly attacked by a stronger nation. His bear- 
ing with regard to this war has been so well described by 
a French writer in the Revue de Paris,'^ that we cannot re- 
frain from translating him at length. 

"The Germans," he says, "had no conception that a 
nation could be unwilling to arm itself for war, and yet 
decide to do so from duty. They supposed that this na- 
tion would contemplate without moving the invasion of 
Flanders, the defeat of France and Russia, and the enslave- 
ment of the small neutral States — after which, when its 
turn came, it would be too late to offer resistance. But 
by the irony of events, and to the stupefaction of the Ger- 
mans, England's moral sense brought her, still ignorant 

^Miss Repplier, quoted in A Textbook of the War for 
Americans, pp. 248-9. 
^ November i, 1915. 



GERMANS AS THEY SEE THEMSELVES 279 

of the hate and jealousy with which she was regarded, 
into the struggle, wherein her only blame was that she was 
not prepared for it. She is now appealing to millions of 
her young men, from whom she will raise an army of vol- 
unteers of a continental order, thereby uniting the country 
in a determination, which is ever becoming stronger, to 
resist and conquer the enemy, and to repair as speedily as 
possible the errors of the past. 

"England was innocent of the war, and she went into 
it in innocence of its character. She had never fought 
against Germany, and had no idea of German methods of 
war. War for her was a noble pastime, dangerous but 
seductive, in which that nation must win whose men are 
the best, not the most intellectual or the most educated, 
nor even the best armed, but the finest, the healthiest, the 
hardiest, the most capable, behind their good humour, of 
patient energy, of loyalty to their duty, and perseverance 
in their efforts. 

"English education had never ceased to produce these 
men^ — men whom Kipling describes — in all grades of so- 
ciety; the nation regarded them as models of the human 
race peculiar to England. They constituted her peculiar 
virtue which had always ended by saving her from the 
most desperate crises. In these men lived the old idea of 
chivalry of Christian and Western origin, which the na- 
tional literature of the nineteenth century revived, which 
a Carlyle, a Ruskin, a Kingsley and a Tennyson have 
taught and sung, adapting it to the wants of a modem 
industrial century — the notle English and French spirit, 
at which the Germans have scoffed. . . . The cavalier in 
the England of to-day has another name, the moral sense 
and prestige of which are very strong — the gentleman — 
and the essentially Christian character of the term survives. 
In its modern form it is the recognised model, the ideal 
type after which the nation, as such, loves to practise the 
virtues — strength accompanied by a sense of proportion, 
modesty in action as in expression, a silent subordination 
of selfish instincts and greedy ambition to a desire for 
truth and justice. At the side of France, in whom there 



280 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

lives a ver)^ similar ideal, derived from the same source, 
but devoid of the peculiar character with which the 
Protestant faith imbues it, and tainted with rationalism, 
and in opposition to Germany, whom she knew to be 
aggressive, but whom she did not yet know to be the 
apostle of might and instinct, and the champion of the 
demoniacal creed of Nietzsche and the relics of Teuton 
paganism, England appeared as the nation of Christians 
and gentlemen who could only carry on the war as such. 
Even now they pray in all their churches for the enemy. 
She is also the nation of sportsmen in the almost wholly 
moral sense in which this word has been used for the last 
fifteen or twenty years — sportsmen determined to play 
the game, that is, to play it fairly, without any blind 
hatred, and without allowing the desire to win to interfere 
with the respect for the rules, or even the respect for the 
adversary, whom they considered worthy of them, and 
whose hand they would be ready to shake when the 
struggle was over, whether he won or lost. In spite of the 
feverish excitement which prevailed at the time of the war 
in the Transvaal . . . permission was given, two years 
after the submission of the Boers, for the erection of a 
statue to President Kriiger at Pretoria ; and it is in keeping 
with the same spirit that a new Dreadnought was christened 
with the name of Botha — while the Germans were con- 
fident of the success of the revolt they had fomented, as 
though the Transvaal were a Prussian Poland or an Alsace- 
Lorraine. 

"Such were the illusions and such the feelings of Eng- 
land, when she entered the lists. An English volunteer 
said to me: 'We thought we were starting a rough game 
of football,' an expression which seems curious to us, but 
perfectly natural the other side of the Channel. . . . To- 
day, England recognises that a war with Germany is not 
a game of football. She has now learnt the meaning of the 
word 'enemy,' and that the present enemy in particular is 
not only an adversary, but an adversary who hates and 
intends to destroy, with little regard for the means. She 
is astonished at her own simplicity of the earlier days. 



GERMANS AS THEY SEE THEMSELVES 281 

which, like other points of weakness, was only a mark of 
her failure to adapt herself to circumstances, proving once 
more the slowness of this country to change its habits and 
its tendencies in such a way as to meet the changes outside. 

"At the beginning she fought against a people who tore 
up treaties and burned and massacred in cold blood, as she 
fought at the battle of Fontenoy. . . . Moved by scruples 
and a feeling of generosity, she delayed for several months 
to declare certain things contraband of war, thereby al- 
lowing her enemy to accumulate fresh resources, which 
may enable her to carry on the hostilities indefinitely. She 
allowed thousands of Germans to move about at their pleas- 
ure in the country, without even placing them under super- 
vision. She restored his sword with compliments to the 
Commander of the Emden, who had committed unques- 
tionable acts of piracy. Almost a national funeral was 
given to the officers of the Blucher who died in captivity. 
At Oxford the zeal was carried still further. In the sanc- 
tuary of Christ Church, commemorative tablets were set 
up in honour of former Cecil Rhodes Foundation Scholars 
of German nationality who died fighting against England, 
and whose names, thus recorded in the heart of the an- 
cient University, will be perpetuated side by side with those 
of distinguished Englishmen. Care was even taken to men- 
tion on the marble the numbers of their Prussian or Ba- 
varian regiments. The country seat of Donington Hall 
was set aside for the enemy's officers, who had been taken 
prisoners, the preparation of which required a special credit 
of 500,000 francs; and there these gentlemen, clad in new 
suits of flannel or tweed, played at tennis, took their tea 
on beautiful lawns and had a servant for every three of 
them. . . . 

"But extraordinary news began to arrive from Belgium 
and then from France — stories of plunder and systematic 
massacres. Horrifying details of them were published in 
the newspapers. But a public taught by its education 
to respect good sense and the principles of law; readers 
accustomed to order, moderation, and to the traditional 
wisdom of Great Britain; — in a word, the moral, refined 



282 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

Englishman, loath to credit anything of which he has not 
actual experience, was scarcely able to conceive the idea 
of the monstrous entering into the reality of life. In this 
old country, thoroughly imbued with the principles of civ- 
ilisation, so complete a subversion of these principles was 
unthinkable. . . . The newspaper correspondents, it was 
argued, must be exaggerating. The Germans were known 
in England; that these peaceable consumers of lager-beer, 
these level-headed clerks and traders, devoid of humour 
and glued to their desks, could one day at a distance of 
fifty leagues from London, conduct themselves like Kip- 
ling's Dacoits, appeared improbable. . . . The monstrous 
unimaginable truth only began to force itself upon the 
masses after the arrival of the first letters from English 
officers — English gentlemen who knew 'what is evidence,' 
and of the truth of whose statements there could thus be 
no doubt, and the return of the first wounded with their 
stories to England, and the publication one by one of the 
reports of the Belgian Commission of Inquiry. . . . Little 
by little a full sense of the German crime against humanity 
penetrated the public mind, and with it the feeling of hor- 
ror which may to-day be regarded as the principal and 
indestructible factor in the English determination to con- 
quer." 

The writer proceeds to enumerate the various forms of 
frightfulness, by the exhibition of which the German 
"gorilla" only succeeded in producing amusement in the 
English mind, or adding a stimulus to recruiting, and con- 
cludes in the following words: "For the great mass of 
the people, who are unable even to imagine the appearance 
of the German on English soil, it is not a question of saving 
the country, nor even of struggling for a democratic ideal 
of justice and liberty as against the usurping principles of 
autocracy, but of fighting against evil, against the powers 
of sin and crime, against Satan, the enemy of God and 
man, the dragon with whom the knights of old went forth 
to do battle. . . . This idea, which German presumption 
and hate have done so much to arouse, is accompanied 
not by corresponding feelings of hate, but by one of 



GERMANS AS THEY SEE THEMSELVES 283 

abomination, an idea and a feeling, which, being of a relig- 
ious order, are endowed with an infinite vitality. This is 
the reason why to-day every Englishman, whether he speaks 
it aloud or not, understands that the present struggle is a 
fight to a finish. In vain, Germany, having failed in her 
object, makes periodical attempts to discuss terms of peace. 
The moral Powers, which she has herself brought into 
being, will not be appeased. Experience has taught the 
world that she does not consider herself bound by a treaty 
— and in the history of the war nothing has more shocked 
the English conscience; that, therefore, there is no possi- 
bility of treating or living with her, and that only two 
things remain, either to crush her power for ever, or per- 
ish. In England this belief, once conceived and diffused 
throughout the country, will endure indefinitely. The war 
will one day come to an end, but England will never for- 
get." 



XVI 

THE DANGERS OF A PREMATURE PEACE 

And is it right that we should forget? The proprietors 
of the French journal Le Matin presented a bronze statue 
of Miss Cavell to the "Ville de Paris," to be placed in some 
public spot, in order, as they said, "que la perpetuite du 
souvenir de ce meurtre infame soit I'eternel chatiment de 
ses auteurs," and it will be well if monuments are raised in 
this country also to the Martyrs of German barbarism, lest 
posterity forget. But to have taken means to keep thus 
vividly before the eyes of future generations the cataclysm 
with which Europe was threatened at the beginning of this 
century, will not acquit us of the duty we owe them. We 
must make it as impossible as in us lies that they shall not 
be exposed to a similar — or a greater — danger. We shall 
be guilty of an unpardonable crime if we allow nothing 
better to i^sue from the appalling sacrifices, which this gen- 
eration is making, than a halting peace. The peace which 
Germany wants is an armistice to enable her to recruit her 
forces and perfect her new methods of warfare and return 
to the attack on humanity with perhaps better chances of 
success. Peace to-day means another war to-morrow. Her 
generals, professors and publicists avow it. 

"If the victory is only half won, they [Germany's ene- 
mies] would have to expect continuous renewals of the con- 
test, which would be contrary to their interests." ^ 

"When peace shall be restored no German who respects 
himself will ever be able to live under the same roof with 
an Englishman. There can be no compromise as to this 
matter. We must swear a national vendetta against the 

* Bernhardi, Germany and the Next War, p. 153. 

284 



THE DANGERS OF A PREMATURE PEACE 285 

English, and never rest, never cease our preparations for 
another war, and neglect no effort until we shall have de- 
stroyed to all eternity the last traces of English power. ^ 

"Even if the war does not end as we hope it will ... we 
shall be hated by the whole of Europe. . . . We shall not, 
in future, be able to allow any period of youth to pass with- 
out military instruction. Education in war must begin 
from the tenderest age." ^ 

"We of the educated classes are perhaps not so confident. 
. . . Naturally we do not count any longer on crushing 
the enemy. . . . But I am strongly of opinion that with a 
little more courage, and w^'th the help of that diplomatic 
skill which has occasionally failed us, we m?y hope to ob- 
tain that honourable peace — cette paix blanche — which will 
assure to Germany the glory of having kept the whole 
world in check, consolidate her prestige in Europe, and 
enable her in the next twenty years, after she has repaired 
the breaches, to establish her sway (Herrschaft)." ^ 

Count Ernst zu Reventlow declares in the Deutsche Tages- 
seitung ^ that "unless Germany keeps the Belgian coast 
and turns Zeebrugge into another Wilhelmshaven, pointed 
at Great Britain's heart," no peace terms will please him. 

One and all we desire nothing more than to see the end of 
this nightmare, but any one who, in this or the Allied Coun- 
tries, raises his voice to support the conclusion of peace on 
conditions other than such as would make it impossible for 
the Central Powers to renew their attempts to subjugate 
the world, to Germanise it and trample it under the heel of 
a military despotism — in other words, any one who advo- 
cates a "peace without victory," is either wholly incapable 

^ Professor von Seyden in the Frankfurter Zeitung. — Paroles 
4llemandes, p. 73. 

^ Die Kreusseitung, quoted by a writer in the Figaro (23rd 
June, 1915) who adds: "Such is the ideal which Germany pic- 
tures to herself. Nothing but militarism, pure and simple; un- 
weaned infants in helmets." 

^ From a letter found on a German officer, quoted by the 
Figaro, * December i, 1916, 



286 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

of realising the issues at stake or he is the enemy's accom- 
pHce. Unconsciously or consciously he is working for his 
own damnation, and what is worse, for the damnation of 
those who come after. You, who are ready to make a truce 
with Germany, while her power for evil is still unbroken, 
and who would give her time and opportunity to forge new 
weapons by which she may invade this island, what will 
be your feelings when your homes are laid in ruins, when 
your wives and daughters — yes, British women and girls 
— are thrown, like those of France and Belgium, to the 
Kaiser's soldiers as "their reward" ^ ; when at last you 
realise the appalling character of the atrocities and besti- 
alities which the troops of this "cultured nation" have 
perpetrated on the Continent? The men who torpedo hos- 
pital ships and fire on Red Cross ambulances will not deal 
tenderly with us. The bitter hatred which they nourish 
towards our nation, because we intervened in time to frus- 
trate their plans, is expressed daily in terms of grossest 
abuse. 

"Hatred causes blindness," writes Dr. von Campe-Hil- 
desheim, of the Reichstag, in the Hamburger Nachrichten, 
"so does powerful light, and the more powerful and purer 
it is the more it blinds. Justice, too, is blind. That is to 
say, she regards not the person but the cause. So it is 
with our hatred of England. 

"It is blind and therefore pure and holy. . . . Then let 
us not be ashamed of this hatred, but glory in it, imbue our 
families, our sons and daughters with it, for it is holy and 
pure, and will in the end burn up in its incandescent inten- 
sity every particle of that vile concoction of depravity, self- 
ishness, greed, malice and mendacity which constitutes the 
armour of Albion. 

"Therefore hatred must be our present cult, and it shall 
yet forge for us weapons unheard-of to smite and crush 
the foe against whom it is directed." ^ 

The following letter was received by an English pro- 
fessional man from a German now In Hamburg, who lived 

^ See below, p. 307. 

"Quoted in the Daily Express, August 21, 1916. 



THE DANGERS OF A PREMATURE PEACE 287 

for some years in England on terms of close friendship 
with him: — 

.... "The history of the last half -century absolutely 
proves that all hope for the future of Europe lies in the 
hands of my country. Russia is Asiatic and barbarous. 
France and the other Latin countries are decadent. Eng- 
land is mean-souled and trivial. Only Germany realises 
the possibilities of to-morrow, and only Germany is capable 
of protecting civilisation from the future inevitable on- 
slaughts from the east. Germany's amazing progress has 
awakened the enmity of her neighbours, and it was that 
envy and enmity that made this war inevitable. 

"There was no reason for Great Britain's interference. 
Your statesmen professed Hp-friendship to us. Up to the 
last moment Sir Edward Grey led us to believe that Great 
Britain would remain neutral. Then when we were em- 
broiled with both Russia and France you sided with our 
enemies. 

"Never in the history of the world has a nation made 
war for a meaner cause, and the hatred that we have for 
Great Britain is the hatred that a nation of idealists nat- 
urally feels for unscrupulous pettifogging hucksters. The 
crime deserves an adequate punishment. Germany is fight- 
ing for her life, and it is idle to suppose that she will fight 
in kid gloves. She is more than justified in using all the 
means devised by the ingenuity of her sons to compass the 
ruin of her foes. Your denunciation of our 'barbarities' 
leaves us entirely unaffected. We rejoice at the killing of 
every single Englishman and at the loss of every British 
ship. We remain cold if a few women and children are 
killed by our air attacks on your cities. This is a war to 
the knife, nation against nation, and it can only end in the 
destruction of the race that has for centuries been the pirate 
of the world. 

"If you and I were to meet, friends as we were once, I 
would not raise my httle finger to save your life, and indeed 
I would do my utmost to cause you to lose it, because, as 
I have said, you are an Englishman. . . . 

"May you all perish In misery. — C. von S — 

*This letter was published in the Daily Express. 



-" 1 



888 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

These are no Idle threats. I verily believe that if Ger- 
many ever set foot in England, horrors would be enacted 
there that would sicken a Nero.^ How will you fare, how 
will those who come after you fare, when there is no law 
but the Kaiser's law, the law of blood and iron through- 
out our land? "It is unthinkable," you say. But it is not 
unthinkable. Already our insular position does not give 
us the same security as of old. Who knows against what 
combination of circumstances, what new engines of war, 
we may not have to contend another time? We have al- 
lowed ourselves to be taken in once, and this time, as we 
may hope, an indulgent Providence — and, nothing shows 
more clearly that there is a Providence — is willing to save 
us from destruction if we will but take heed. Should we 
defy that Providence, and let ourselves be fooled again, we 
shall deserve the fate that will assuredly overtake us, though 
it be a worse fate than that of Belgium or Serbia. A bully, 
merely rebuked and temporarily foiled, is ever nourishing 
thoughts of revenge and watching his opportunity. You 
are prepared to make another treaty with Germany and 
trust her to abide by it! How can we make any more 
treaties with her without some sure means of enforcing 
their execution, when all her great "Intellectuals" have 
declared that treaties may be torn up at the convenience 
of the State, that they should be broken on principle, and 
her chief statesmen have called them "scraps of paper," 
when in fact they have been so torn up scores of times? 
A treaty is no more holy in their eyes than a cathedral or 
a woman's honour. We might as well sign a convention 
with the leaders of a band of Thugs and trust them never 
to make war on mankind again. Peace to-day would 

* Since writing the above words I see that Mr. Gustave C. 
Roeder, a member of the staff of the New York World, reports 
that he heard the following statement made in Germany: "You 
talk about the atrocities in Belgium committed by German sol- 
diers; whatever was committed in Belgium cannot be called Bar- 
barism on the part of the German army; but once let us get into 
England, and there will be no way of holding back our soldiers ; 
and no doubt the world will hear of atrocities being committed 
such as are unknown to-day." — Sir Theodore A. Cook, The Mark 
of the Beast, 1917, pp. 300-1. 



THE DANGERS OF A PREMATURE PEACE 289 

necessitate continued preparations for another war. It 
would mean a renewal of rivalry in armaments, increased 
war budgets, fresh intrigues in India and Egypt. The Ger- 
man credit of fifty millions brought about the three years' 
service law in France. Our thoughts would be for ever 
fixed on war, nor would a treaty signed with Germany to- 
day prevent her from making preparations to land a million 
men on our shores, when she could take us unawares in the 
midst of the peace we had given her, without any declara- 
tion of hostility. Therefore, we can only make peace with 
her when we are able, at the same time, to render it impos- 
sible for her to break that peace. There is no alternative to 
this, and the only means by which we can effect it is to 
bring about a situation which will crush the spirit of mili- 
tarism on which she has thriven. This fact is, at present, 
far from being brought home to her. There is no sign of 
repentance or remorse in the tone in which she is asking 
for peace to-day.^ On the contrary, she Is still glorying in 
the wicked things she has done and vaunting her power to 
perpetrate others still more hideous. "To these events on 
land," said Bethmann-Hollweg, In allusion to the exploits 
achieved by the German armies on the Continent, "heroic 
deeds of equal importance were added by our subma- 
rines"! His speech in the Reichstag concerning the peace 
proposals is the apotheosis of German violence and bru- 
tality, and in this spirit the recent Note to the Allies was 
presented. It Is the same spirit in which, three years pre- 
viously,^ he said: "I assert, gentlemen, that the passion- 
ate aspiration of every Prussian is to protect against all 
attacks the Prussian army and its leadership by the Prus- 
sian King. We must prevent that army ever becoming 
after the English model, 'the army of Parliament/ or under 
any other than the control of the King of Prussia. The 
strength of this national army, and Its position under kingly 

*The Austrian Press recently declared that, if the Allies would 
not enter into peace negotiations, the Central Powers would carry 
on the war with a conscience as clear as that with which they 
began it ! 

* January lo, 1914. 



290 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

leadership must be maintained against all assaults. We 
cannot take upon ourselves the responsibility of diminish- 
ing one iota of the Prusso-German military system, which 
has been, and is, and will be, the corner-stone of the 
strength both of the Kingdom of Prussia and the German 
Empire." ^ 

It is the spirit in which their writers have argued: — 
"Germany has exercised her right of necessity, and has 
fulfilled a sacred duty towards herself and towards civilisa- 
tion. Belgium is herself responsible for her fate. Every 
sin has its punishment on this earth ; the crimes committed 
by States are avenged in this world. A heavy responsi- 
bility Hes upon the Belgian statesmen. Only one excuse 
can be urged in their favour, namely, that they did not un- 
derstand the great, noble and incomparable Germany" ; ^ 
and in which the Lokalanzeiger has claimed that: ''Bel- 
gium comes to us like a bit of game that we have brought 
down. It must be annexed to Germany. This is not for 
the pleasure of granting to that riff-raff the honour of 
belonging to the German Empire! But we must use Bel- 
gium as a closed fist under the nose of perfidious Albion" ; 
and General von Dithfurt has written in Der Tag: "We do 
not have to render an account to the world of our respon- 
sibilities. We have nothing to justify, nothing to defend, 
nothing to excuse. All that our troops do in order to over- 
come the enemy, to bring victory to their banners, all is jus- 
tifiable. We have not the slightest need to trouble about the 
judgment of foreigners, whether neutral or not, and if all 
the monuments which separate our armies from the enemy 
were reduced to dust ... we should have time to deplore 
it when peace has been signed"; and a Catholic priest, a 

^"It is not true that the combat against our so-called 
militarism is not a combat against our civilisation . . . were 
it not for German militarism German civilisation would long 
since have been extirpated." (An address "To the Civilised 
World," by ninety-three representatives of German science 
and art.) 

^Not kennt kein Gebot ("Necessity knows no Law"), by Josef 
Kohler, Professor of Law at the University of Berlin; quoted by 
the Figaro, September, 191 5. 



THE DANGERS OF A PREMATURE PEACE 291 

member of the Reichstag, has declared in the Vossische 
Zeitung: "It is true that our soldiers have shot down, in 
France and in Belgium, all the brigands — men, women, 
children — and that they have destroyed their dwellings. 
But whoever sees in that a contradiction of Christian teach- 
ing, proves that he has not the slightest comprehension of 
the true Spirit of Christ." 

It was in the same spirit that their ancestors asked for 
peace of Caesar nearly two thousand years ago. The story 
is so similar in all its details to the situation of to-day and 
so instructive that it is worth recounting. Ambassadors 
from two Gallic tribes, the ^dui and the Sequani, pre- 
sented themselves to Caesar to complain of the treatment 
they had received at the hands of Ariovistus {i.e. Heerfiirst 
or War-Lord) and the armies with which he had invaded 
their country : — 

"The same chiefs of the States who had previously come 
to Caesar returned and asked if they might negotiate with 
him in secret concerning their own welfare and that of 
all the other States. The request being granted, they threw 
themselves, in tears, at Caesar's feet, saying that they no 
less begged and beseeched that what they should say might 
not be made known than that they might obtain the ob- 
ject of their desires, because they foresaw that if their 
aims were known they would be exposed to the severest 
torture. Divitiacus, the ^duan, then became their spokes- 
man. , . . He said that about 15,000 of them [the Ger- 
mans] had at the beginning crossed the Rhine, and that 
after these wild barbarians had destroyed their lands and 
their cultivation and subdued the forces of the Gauls 
more of them had been brought over; that there were 
now in Gaul about 120,000 of them . . . but a greater 
disaster had befallen the victorious Sequani than the 
vanquished ^dui, for Ariovistus, the king of the Germans, 
had settled within their boundaries and had occupied a 
third part of their territory, which was the best in the whole 
of Gaul, and was now ordering them to remove themselves 
from the remaining third part. . . . The result would be 
that, in a few years' time, they would all be driven from 



292 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

the land of Gaul, and the whole of the Germans would 
cross the Rhine; for the land of Gaul is not to be compared 
with that of Germany, nor must the manner of living of 
the latter be put on the same level with that of the former. 
As soon as Ariovistus had defeated the Gauls in battle, 
he began to rule over them in a haughty, cruel manner, 
demanding from them as hostages the noblest children 
of each State, and subjecting them to all sorts of tortures 
if everything was not done at his nod and pleasure; that 
the man was a savage and passionate barbarian, and it 
was impossible to endure his tyranny any longer. . . . 
Ariovistus [being questioned by Caesar] replied ; that no 
one had ever entered the lists with him without bring- 
ing about his own perdition; that Caesar might engage 
in battle with him whenever he chose; he would then 
realise what deeds invincible Germans, who were better 
trained than all others in arms, and who had not been 
under a roof for fifteen years, could perform by their 
valour. . . . He [Ariovistus] expatiated largely on his 
own virtues . . . [and said that] if Caesar would retire and 
leave to him free possession of Gaul he would remunerate 
him handsomely. When it became known among the 
ranks with what arrogance Ariovistus had spoken at the 
conference, that he had ordered the Romans to leave the 
whole of Gaul, and that his cavalry had made an assault 
upon our men, and that this circumstance had interrupted 
the parley, the Roman army became imbued with greater 
alacrity and eagerness for battle. . . . Ambassadors 
came from them [the Germans] speaking as follows: 
'The Germans,' they said, 'were not the first to make war 
upon the Roman people. ... If the Romans wished for 
their friendship, they might be useful allies to them; let 
them either assign lands to them or permit them to keep 
those which they had won by their arms; they acknow- 
ledged the superiority of no one but the Suevi, to whom the 
immortal gods could not pretend to be equal; that there 
was no one else on earth whom they could not conquer. 
To these remarks Caesar replied in such words as he thought 
fit, but the gist of his speech was that there could be no 
friendship possible between him and them as long as they 



THE DANGERS OF A PREMATURE PEACE 293 

remained in Gaul. But the enemy, as soon as they had 
descried our cavalry, the number of which was 5000 . . . 
while our men entertained no apprehensions, seeing that 
their ambassadors had quitted Caesar's presence only a 
short time before, and that day had been granted to them, 
at their request, as a period of truce, made a sudden attack 
and threw our men into disorder. . . , After this engage- 
ment Caesar was convinced that ambassadors should no 
longer be received in audience or conditions accepted 
from men who, after having sued for peace, by way 
of stratagem and treachery, renewed hostilities without 
provocation; and to wait until the enemy's forces had 
been augmented, would, he considered, be sheer 
madness." ^ And it would be sheer madness to- 
day. 

We may take warning also from Strabo's denunciation 
of their treachery. "The hostiHties were begun by the 
Sugambri, who live on the banks of the Rhine. . . . One 
after another of the tribes obtained the upper hand over 
the Romans, and were in turn subdued only to rise again 
without regard to the hostages they had delivered or the 
faith they had pledged. By far the best course is to hold 
them in distrust, as those who have been trusted by 
the Romans have done the greatest mischief, as witness 
the Cherusci and those who are subject to their rule. 
It was they who ambushed and destroyed three Roman 
legions with their general, Varus Quintilius, in defiance 
of treaties." ^ What they did in the days of Caesar and of 
Strabo they have done, as we have seen, in the Middle 
Ages and more recent times, and they will do it again in 
the future. 

But in all cases there is danger in the conclusion of peace 
when the aggressor is only half -conquered. In 1802 we 
made a premature peace with Napoleon, to satisfy the pac- 
ifists of that day — the Peace of Amiens — ^his armies being 
then on the verge of exhaustion. Only three and a half 
years later we were battling anew for the freedom of Eu- 
rope against those same armies. 

^ Caesar, De Bello Gallico, i. 31, 36, 44, 46; iv. 7, 8, 12, 13. 
" Strabo, Geography, vii. i. 



294 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

Germany will make no halting peace with us if ever she 
can dictate the tertns. She will see to it that the British 
Empire shall never rise again. 

"There are people," writes the Matin,^ "who imagine 
that it will be wiser to accept as early a peace as possible, 
and allow the German nation to recover from its 'passing 
folly.' There cannot be a more dangerous illusion than 
this. It is not true that the German people are suffering 
from a 'passing folly.' They are literally subdued and 
hypnotised by the race of the Hohenzollerns, who have 
persuaded them that they owe everything to them — their 
wealth, their organisation, and their existence as a nation. 
... If Germany remains intact after the war, she will 
immediately begin, all over again, the economic struggle 
which she had so carefully organised; while, from a mili- 
tary point of view, the danger will be greater than ever. 
The effects of over-population will be felt more acutely 
ten years hence than they are now, and we may be sure 
that war material will be collected and stored up in pro- 
portion to the increase of the population. . . . Germany 
only half conquered will be bent on revenge. If nothing 
better is achieved than a halting or patched-up peace, Eu- 
rope will be exposed for the next fifty years at least to a 
new series of wars; and heaven knows what, in this case, 
will be the end of our civilisation." 

The North American has the same conviction: "Peace 
now would be a mockery. The sovereignty of force would 
be exalted. Militarism would emerge triumphant, and 
bring under its iron sway the peoples of all nations. The 
sacrifice of a million lives would have been vain, and this 
war would be but the overture to a future struggle more 
bloody, more destructive, and more cruel. 

"Until the brazen idol of militarism is overthrown and 
broken in pieces there will be no rest for the races of men. 
And that can be accomplished only by compulsion achieved 
through a decisive result." ^ 

'July 7, 1915- 

^ February 5, 1915; quoted in A Textbook of the War for Amer- 
icans, p. 494. 



THE DANGERS OF A PREMATURE PEACE 295 

Already, for more than a year, the Germans have been 
employing all manner of devices to bring the neutrals to 
their aid. Their efforts in this direction have become more 
and more strenuous, and their devices more cunning in 
proportion as their embarrassments have increased. 

"Foreseeing the failure of their plot," wrote the Matin, 
"our enemies are seeking again to persuade the neutrals that 
the Allies, and England in particular, are alone opposed to 
peace and responsible for the prolongation of the horrors 
of war. But let us not be deceived by diplomatic intrigues 
and cunning propaganda. For a year now this same Ger- 
many . . . regardless of honour and of the dictates of hu- 
manity, and in defiance of the engagements into which she 
entered . . . has bombarded cathedrals, poisoned our sol- 
diers with gases, plundered private houses, and broken into 
safes! She has laid everything waste, pillaged, massacred, 
burnt and outraged. For a year this miserable Kaiser and 
his savage people have let loose their loathsome hordes on 
Belgium and France. And now that the plot, laid bare 
before the eyes of the world, has miscarried; now that, 
thanks to the patriotism of the Belgians and the heroism 
of those who fought on the Marne, the tide has turned; 
now that the indefatigable tenacity of the Russians has 
blocked the road to victory, and the daily increasing deter- 
mination of England is bringing unexpected armies to the 
help of France, already victorious, the Royal Bandit begins 
to reflect and repent." ^ . . . 

In order to impress the neutrals, our enemies are now 
raising the cry that they are fighting for the liberty of 
the nations and in defence of democracy at home — ^but a 
democracy under a Kaiser who has said : "It was in this 
spot that my grandfather, in his own right placed the Royal 
Crown of Prussia upon his head, insisting once again that 
it was bestowed upon him by the grace of God alone, and 
not by parliaments and meetings and decisions of the peo- 
ple. He thus regarded himself as the chosen instrument of 
Heaven, and as such carried out his duties as a ruler and 
lord. I consider myself such an instrument of Heaven, 

* August, 1915, in an article entitled Trop tot. 



296 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

and shall go on my way without regard to the views and 
opinions of the day" ^ ; while his brother declared that 
he was actuated by one single motive : "A desire to pro- 
claim to the nations the gospel of Your Majesty's sacred 
person, and to preach that gospel alike to those who will 
listen and those who will not." 

Let them establish a true democracy, and give the pro- 
mised freedom to the people they oppress. We may then 
consider terms of peace. Meanwhile, we may remind our- 
selves of the warning words which a Roman General ad- 
dressed to the Gauls of old : "The same motives that first 
induced the Germans to cross the Rhine will ever subsist; 
ambition, avarice, and the love of new settlements will be 
perpetual incentives to them. . . . On your own soil they 
wish to lord it over you. They come to ravage your lands, 
and liberty is the pretence." ^ 

"We shall have lost this war," as Mr. Bonar Law has 
said, "unless we make it certain that never again shall it 
be in the power of one man, or group of men, to turn the 
world into the charnel-house which exists to-day." ^ 

Our Allies are at one with us in this. Their statesmen 
have made it clear to the world. Signor Bissolati, Vice- 
President of the BoseUi Cabinet, who was known for years 
as an uncompromising socialist and pacifist, has spoken as 
follows: "The peace to which the whole world aspires 
after so many horrors and sacrifices must be a real and last- 
ing peace and not a mere truce. Civilisation must be safe- 
guarded against attempts similar to the one against which 
it is now reacting. ... I therefore think that any State 
or States of the Entente which to-day harboured thoughts 
of peace would be guilty of an act of treason." * 

When M. Deschanel said, in the French Senate, "that 
the blood of our martyrs would cry out against us if we 
did not complete their work," the whole audience rose to 

*K6nigsberg, 1910; quoted in A Textbook of the War for 
Americans, p. 141. 
^ Tacitus, Hist. iv. 73. 
' October 12, 1916. 
* Quoted by The New Europe, October, igi6. 



THE DANGERS OF A PREM-4TURE PEACE 297 

its feet, shouting "Vive la France! Vive la Republique!" 
The scene was repeated when he spoke of the faithfulness 
of the Allies of France, and declared that France, relying 
on them, would never yield either to the insolent threats 
or the treacherous proposals of the enemy. "As if the 
Allies," said General Joffre, in an address to his troops, 
"who have sworn to continue the struggle to the death, 
would think of violating the oath at the moment when the 
hour of Germany's retribution is about to strike." Our 
own men at the Front tell us that the glorious troops of 
France are fighting as men fight in a Holy War. 

How can any thinking men fail to be at heart in sym- 
pathy with our cause when they realise the issues at stake : 
"absolutism and militarism on the one hand, liberty and 
representative government on the other" ; when they see 
"Live and let live" inscribed on our banner and "Deutsch- 
land iiber Alles" and — what is worse — "Deutschtum iiber 
Alles" on that of our enemy; when they see what nations 
are ranged with Germany against us — Austria, trampling 
on the nationahties subject to her sway, and torn by inter- 
nal dissensions, and Turkey! What can humanity hope 
for from their ascendancy? "The great philosophical an- 
archists of Paris and Petrograd stretch out their hands 
across the battle-field to the religious believers in Delhi and 
Tibet. ^ The opposite ends of the earth are agreed in one 
thing at least — that they will not suffer a State-machine to 
over-ride the human spirit, or a bastard 'efficiency' to stran- 
gle the beauty and variety of human life." ^ 

The Holland Section of the "League of Neutral States" 
has appealed to the people of America, with special refer- 
ence to the deportation and enslavement of Germany's 

*At the outbreak of the war the Grand Lama of Tibet offered 
to place a force of looo men at the disposal of the Indian Govern- 
ment and declared that he was praying for the success of British 
arms. 

'John Cowper Powys, The War and Culture, p. 78. 

The savages of East Africa and New Guinea are imploring 
us not to let them be again subjected to the horrors of the German 
yoke. 



298 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

new victims, to join with the other neutrals in arresting 
"the hellish scourge which at this moment lacerates the 
whole of the North of France and Western Russia." In 
another appeal, signed by a hundred and fifty well known 
men in Holland, the writers call upon the neutrals, who 
are in the full enjoyment of their liberty, to put themselves 
in the place of Belgium. "Think," they say, "what it means 
to be subjugated by a foreign master . . . and to know 
that, if you resist him, you will lose your independence for 
ever. . . . 

"The Entente Powers declared, on the 14th of February, 
1916, that they will accept no peace by which the political 
and economic independence of Belgium is not wholly re- 
stored. That is their reply to the German demands. The 
neutrals also must reply. . . . 

"It seems to us necessary that this principle should be 
affirmed without delay by a formal demand of all the neu- 
tral nations, since those who meditate an attack against a 
weak neighbour, will hesitate to carry out their intentions 
if they know that such an aggression will not remain un- 
punished. . . . The world has at its disposal the means of 
coercion, if not military, at least moral and economic; and 
the opinion of the world can, at the present moment, be 
manifested only by action on the part of the neutrals. 
They have the right, and it is their duty and within their 
power to insist that they shall decide where the highest 
interests of humanity are at stake." 

"This terrible war," said Mr. Castberg, President of the 
Norwegian Lower House, "with its broken treaties, its vio- 
lation of international law, its atrocities and its devasta- 
tions on land and sea, has rendered the peace movement 
hopeless in the eyes of many. War threatens to create 
a hatred that will be of greater intensity after this war 
than after any other. A persistent and protracted econo- 
mic and intellectual struggle will ensue between the nations, 
which will demolish the remains of the basis of the peace 
movement. 

"And yet not only did England and Russia before the 
war call for arbitration to prevent the war, but this war is 



THE DANGERS OF A PREMATURE PEACE 299 

in itself, a more powerful protest of nations against war 
than any other previous war has been. It will never be 
forgotten that it was a flagrant breach of a treaty, an out- 
rageous violation of a small nation's neutrality, that, in a 
moment, roused public opinion in the British Empire to 
such a degree that nothing could restrain it. It will never 
be forgotten that, with this in view. Great Britain inscribed 
on her banner the inviolability of treaties and the right of 
the small nations to liberty and independence after the war. 
Over and over again this has been repeated by England's 
leading statesmen. We have before us now the fact, hith- 
erto unknown in history, that the democracy (and first 
and foremost the working men) of a country that is the 
cradle of liberty in Europe, has voluntarily raised an army 
of millions fighting on the plains of France and Flanders, 
and millions of women working to release the men for 
fighting. But all this has only been feasible because de- 
mocracy in that powerful Empire is filled with the belief 
that this is a struggle which, in the end, will crush the 
policy of might, of war, and of militarism. The free peo- 
ple of France and England, who formerly saved the liberty 
of the world, feel in the very depths of their souls that it 
is they who are at the head of a crusade for justice, lib- 
erty, and peace. And therefore they are willing to pay such 
heavy sacrifices and to endure." ^ 

As to American opinion: "The world cannot, will not, 
let Gennany win this war," wrote the New York Times.^ 
"With her dominating all Europe, peace and security would 
vanish from the earth. A few months ago the world only 
dimly comprehended Germany; now it knows her thor- 
oughly. . . . For their own peace and safety, the nations 
must demolish that towering structure of militarism in the 
centre of Europe that has become the world's danger-spot, 
its greatest menace." 

And recently the New York Tribune has expressed itself 
more at length in similar terms: — 

* Speech at the Scandinavian Parliamentary Conference at Stock- 
holm, quoted in Daghladet, September 2, 1916. 
^ December 15, 1914. 



300 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

"We have no interest in the question of frontiers: we 
have no stake or concern in the matter of the possession of 
Constantinople or the partition of Asia Minor. We are as 
little concerned with some of the incidental issues of the 
Great War as was Europe with some phases of the Civil 
War. But we are interested in the preservation of hu- 
manity, of civihsation, and of law from the assault which 
the Germans have made upon them and the menace which 
the survival of the German idea would have for them. . . . 

"The German method and the German ideal are old. 
Frederick the Great did in Silesia what William II is doing 
in Belgium. At the end of the war he kept Silesia, and 
thus encouraged his successors to new acts of equal im- 
morality. For nearly two centuries the German idea, first 
Prussian, has marched from one idea to another to accom- 
plish the purpose of all Germans — the domination of Eu- 
rope and the mastery of the world. 

"When the German people have resumed the control of 
their own government, when the German people have re- 
nounced the policies and the purposes of their rulers, then 
peace may come without- the despoliation of Germany as 
peace came to France in Napoleon's time and left the 
France of the Ancien Regime undisturbed. But if Ger- 
many can remain as she is, if the German rulers can bring 
back from this last terrible war of conquest a new 
Silesia, a new Alsace-Lorraine, a new Schleswig, then we 
shall have new wars imtil the time when at last the Ger- 
man idea is crushed in the blood and slime of a final de- 
feat. 

"All that civilisation means remains at stake. Nothing 
has as yet been decided as to the momentous question 
raised by Germany in the first week of August, 19 14, when 
she sent the vanguard of hosts into Belgitim, to bum, to 
slay, to ruin a nation, because it stood between Germany 
and a purpose and dared to defend its honour and its in- 
dependence. Those who fired Louvain and sank the Ltisi- 
tania rule Germany; they remain faithful to the spirit of 
these crimes, and while this condition endures, peace is 



THE DANGERS OF A PREMATURE PEACE 301 

impossible for long and peace now would be a crime against 
posterity. . . . 

"This war was born of German determination to crush 
all that came between Germany and world domination. It 
was provoked after long preparation, it was prosecuted with 
fiendish brutality, which endures to the present moment, and 
with each succeeding month gives new proof of German 
spirit and German methods. It can only end when this Ger- 
man spirit is exorcised, whether it ends at the Rhine or the 
Spree, whether in 19 17 or 1927. It can end only in one 
way, because to believe that it could end save in German 
defeat would be to believe that we were witnessing the end 
of all that makes for sweetness and light, for human hap- 
piness and human aspiration in this world." 

Dr. Charles Eliot, President Emeritus of Harvard, has 
spoken as follows : "With Germany might made right. She 
made a violent attack on the weaker, because it was the 
shortest, the easiest way. What a blow this was to our 
idea of mercy, to our conception of the progress of man 
from a barbarian to a civilised, fair, merciful being! We 
had hoped that the methods of war were capable of ame- 
lioration, but this war has blown all those hopes to the 
winds. 

"All our hopes were shattered by Germany's action. All 
our American ideas of the right to life, liberty, property, 
happiness, were nullified by this nation, which is led by a 
ruler who has an archaic idea of his powers and of his 
relation to the world. Germany has shown us that in the 
most advanced nation, as far as science is concerned, there 
is no place for mercy, no place for goodwill and that hatred 
takes the place of good motives. 

"We must bear in mind the deep obligations which this 
nation is under to England and France, so deep that it is 
vain to expect us to be in our hearts neutral. Can we 
think of giving no aid to France if she comes to the end of 
her resources; to England if she should be reduced to like 
straits ? 

"But let us not confuse our minds by failing to see 
whither the German policy tends. Let us not dream of 



302 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

abandoning our faith that human relations shall be de- 
termined by considerations of justice, mercy, love and 
goodwill. We must help the Allies if our assistance is re- 
quested." ^ 

"The side," says Mr. William White, "which regards 
war as a 'biological necessity,' which glorifies Might as 
superior to Right, which first flouts and disregards treaties 
and conventions, and then tries falsely to explain them 
away; the side which, in spite of — or largely because of — 
the tragic befoolment of millions of plain, worthy, simple- 
minded people, represents essentially a mediaeval, warlike 
aristocracy — that side can never hope to have the sympathy, 
support, or co-operation of the American people. A peace 
that would establish as the practical ruler of the world a 
Power whose avowed intent is to be such a ruler, and to 
force upon its fellow-nations its own perverted standards 
of Kultur, of civilisation, of national and international 
morals, ought to be — and, I believe, would be — intolerable 
to this country. 

"Therefore the only sort of peace which would seem de- 
sirable to America is a peace which shall ensure the domi- 
nance and continuous spread of the ideals for which the 
Allies are fighting." ^ 

The American '^Committee of Rights" passed a resolu- 
tion in March, 191 6, to the effect that: "The safety and 
honour of the American people and their duty to defend 
and maintain the rights of humanity require us to approve 
the cause for which the Entente Allies are fighting, and to 
extend to these Allies by any means in our power, not only 
sympathy but direct co-operation at the proper time, to the 
end that government of the people, by the people, for the 
people shall not perish from the earth." . . . 

In an Address to the People of the Allied Nations, signed 
by five hundred of America's men of letters, the writers 
say: "The time has come — if indeed it has not long since 
passed — when Americans owe it to themselves to express 

^Address on "America's Duty in Relation to the European 
War," quoted in A Textbook of the War for Americans, p, 343. 
^ A Textbook of the War for Americans, pp. 483-4. 



THE DANGERS OF A PREMATURE PEACE 303 

more publicly and more formally their sympathies and their 
judgment. Even as we have always held ourselves, as a 
nation, free to express openly our sympathies for peoples 
struggling for their liberties, so now we have the duty of 
at least making clear our solidarity of sentiment with those 
who are struggling to preserve the liberties of the world 
and the highest ideals of civilisation. 

"The main facts in the controversy have long been be- 
fore us. The case of the Teutonic allies, especially, has 
not lacked fullness of statement. The ablest German pub- 
licists and professors have presented the Austro-German 
contentions with great eloquence. Numerous German 
documents have been widely circulated, and an active, and 
sometimes insidious, German propaganda has been exten- 
sively carried on in the United States. 

"The American judgment has been deliberately formed, 
and it is based very largely on a study of German documents 
and of German statements as to the points at issue. 

"The signers of this document are not unmindful of the 
great contributions which Germany has in the past made 
to the common treasure of modern civilisation; all of us 
acknowledge our debt to Germany; many of us have the 
advantage of German education; some of us are of German 
blood. But the welfare of that civilisation for which Ger- 
many has done so much, the highest interests of Germany 
herself, demand that in this conflict Germany and Austria 
shall be defeated. We confidently and hopefully look for- 
ward to that result. . . . 

"It is because we believe that the success of Great Brit- 
ain, France, Italy and Russia will mean the restoration of 
Belgium and of Servia, and the suppression of miHtarism, 
that we ardently hope for that consummation. In that hope 
we believe the future of civilisation to be involved." 

"Solemn treaties," says Professor Hale, "made 'between 
the United States and other Powers,' including Germany, 
have been broken by her. The breaking of a treaty is 
always a sufficient reason for a declaration of war if the 
offended party desires. We had a sufficient reason on 
the day on which the text of the German ultimatum to Bel- 



S04 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

gium was published even if we were doubtful about the 
ridiculous reason given. Germany's announcement that, 
if Belgium resisted the violation of her territory, Germany 
would regard her resistance as a hostile act, and treat the 
relations of the two countries hereafter according to the 
arbitrament of war, was enough. When precious his- 
torical monuments, which are in a very true sense the prop- 
erty of all mankind, began to be destroyed or to be gravely 
injured there was again enough. When an unfortified and 
undefended town was three times bombarded there was 
again enough. When the peaceful vessels of neutrals, as 
well as vessels of war, began to be blown up by floating 
mines there was once more enough. And even if we 
did not make war, it was our duty at the very least to ad- 
dress a temperate protest to Germany. We did not pro- 
test. The love of fair play is inherent in the Anglo-Saxon 
race, as well as in most others. Even a crowd at a prize- 
fight or a game will not tolerate repeated and deliberate 
foul play and wait to the end in the hope of adjudication. 
It will promptly drag the offending party out of the ring. 
But we do nothing." ^ 

^Prof. William Gardner Hale, of Chicago, in the New York 
Tribune of November lo, 1914; quoted in A Textbook of the War 
for Americans, p. 347. 

With reference to the indifference of the neutrals, the 
Temps, in its issue of 23rd September, 191 5, writes: "The 
conventions of the Hague and the decisions of numerous con- 
ferences are outrageously violated by the brutal German 
invaders, while Governments, which proclaimed with us the 
sanctity of international obligations, remain unmoved. The 
Central Empires have rendered of no effect the signatures of 
their co-contractors; their cruelties have surpassed the limits of 
the horrors of war, and their undisguised lust for conquest and 
domination threatens the nations. Their allies, the Turks, are 
massacring the Greeks and exterminating the Armenians, dividing 
their women amongst them and selling their children into slavery : 
and we are still waiting for the neutrals to protest against their 
monstrous crimes ! 

"Serbia, Belgium, France, England and Russia have been strug- 
gling for fourteen months against the aggressors, and Italy has 
voluntarily joined them. It is to these Powers alone that the world 
leaves the task of protecting it against the most serious peril which 
has ever menaced it." 



THE DANGERS OF A PREMATURE PEACE 305 

Nothing, that is, as a nation. But there are many from 
neutral countries, and amongst them, Americans, fighting 
in our ranks. What can give better testimony to the pur- 
ity of our cause than that letter, written by a young Amer- 
ican, to his "folks at home," a few days before he was 
struck down by a German bullet ? ^ 

"I am now no longer untried," he said. "Two weeks' 
action in a great battle is to my credit, and if my faith in 
the wisdom of my course or my enthusiasm for the cause 
had been due to fail, it would have done so during that 
time. But it has only become stronger; I find myself a 
soldier among millions of others in the great Allied armies, 
fighting for all I believe right and civilised and humane 
against a power which is evil and which threatens the 
existence of all the right we prize and the freedom we 
enjoy. 

"It may seem to you that for me this is all quite uncalled 
for, that it can only mean either the supreme sacrifice for 
nothing, or at best some of the best years of my life wasted ; 
but I tell you that not only am I willing to give my life to 
this enterprise (for that is comparatively easy, except 
when I think of you), but that I firmly believe — if I live 
through it to spend a useful lifetime with you — that never 
will I have an opportunity to gain so much honourable ad- 
vancement for my own soul, or to do so much for the 
cause of the world's progress, as I have here daily defend- 
ing the liberty that mankind has so far gained against 
the attack of an enemy who would deprive us of it and 
set the world back some centuries if he could have his 
way. 

"I think less of myself than I did, less of the heights of 
personal success I aspired to climb, and more of the service 
that each of us must render in payment for the right to 
live and by virtue of which only we can progress. 

"Yes, my dearest folks, we are indeed doing the world's 
work over here, and I am in it to the finish." ^ 

^ Lieut. Harry Butters, a citizen of California. 
* Quoted in the Press of September 9, 1916. 



306 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

And when he fell his captain wrote of him : — 

"He was with his guns, and no one could have died in 
a nobler way. . . . He was one of the brightest, cheeriest 
boys I have ever known, and always the life and soul of the 
mess. . . . We all realised his nobility in coming to the 
help of another country entirely of his own free will, and 
understood what a big heart he had. He was loved by all." 

And there is the tribute of the Dominions and of India 
who, Germany thought, would throw off their allegiance 
at the beginning of the war. As M. Pierre Hamp ^ ob- 
serves: . . . "The active solidarity of the British colonies, 
the loyalty to the Empire of millions of men scattered over 
the whole circumference of the earth, furnish a rare in- 
stance of an ardent patriotism even in countries whose 
frontiers are not exposed to invasion from without. This 
bond, established without the employment of any force, be- 
tween diverse races, is England's great moral victory in 
this war, an achievement whereby she gives evidence to the 
world of the noble manner in which she directs the des- 
tinies of men. Without constraint she leads them by mil- 
lions to the sacrifice." . . . 

"There are in India," writes Mr. F. W. Whitridge,^ "two 
hundred and seventy million people governed by less than 
eight hundred white men with an insignificant army. Can- 
ada, Australia and New Zealand, and the islands all over 
the globe are bound to Great Britain by little more than a 
flag and a language, and yet they have begun to pour forth 
money and men to fight against the extension of German 
Kultur, and promise as much and as many more as are nec- 
essary to prevent a final German victory." 

We shall have behaved with infamous treachery towards 
these men if, after accepting their sacrifices, we conclude a 
peace which will make it possible that those sacrifices shall 
have been made in vain. 

"There must be reparation for the past," said Mr. Bonar 
Law, "and security for the future." Reparation in the full 
sense there can never be, but there can be punishment for 

^In the Figaro, November 28, 1915. 

' One American's Opinion of the European War, p. 14. 



THE DANGERS OF A PREMATURE PEACE 307 

the crime committed. "Is he going to make good the des- 
olated homes, the losses of the widows and the fatherless, 
the sack, rapine and ruin that the brutal bully has brought 
upon an inoffensive people in order that he may trample 
his way to world power ? How will he make good the un- 
bridled licence of the German soldier, including the outrage 
of women, which General von Boehn, according to his 
American interviewer, Mr. Powell, of the New York 
World, cynically endorsed as 'the soldier's reward' ?" ^ 

No one demands that the aggressor shall be brought to 
trial in more strenuous words than the German Hermann 
Femau in his book, Gerade well ich Deufscher bin ^ : — 

"Only after the resolute prosecution of this trial," he 
says, "shall we have a Europe capable of organising such 
a condition of public peace as accords with human reason. 
Any one who strives to establish such a condition without 
having first demanded the punishment of the criminal — 
any one who is capable of appealing for assistance in the 
reorganisation of Europe to those who have hitherto de- 
clined to share the responsibility for war with their people 
— is setting a wolf to mind the sheep and constituting him- 
self the protector of the war-fury. 

"In the name of the millions who have already fallen in 
this gigantic war, in the name of the millions perchance yet 
to fall, in the name of the public peace and security of Eu- 
rope, in the name of the culture and civilisation of our 
earth, in the name of the inviolable, unwritten and eternal 
right of the nations, I demand this trial and this punish- 
ment, and I demand them 

"just because I am a GERMAN." 

In an interview which he gave to the correspondent of 
the Matin at Bale in April, 191 6, the same writer spoke as 
follows : — 

"For the present the Government has been able by means 
of various devices, and with the help of a servile Press, 
to deceive the people, and make them believe that Ger- 

* Germany's Designs on South Africa, p. 84. 

"English translation, Because I am a German, pp. 153-4. 



308 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

many, peace-loving Germany, was treacherously attacked 
by her enemies, who were jealous of her; but there are 
persons in the country whose minds have lately begun to 
be enlightened. 

"The Government which has only been able to maintain 
its credit on the strength of successful miHtary operations 
which it has skilfully exploited — this Government will fall 
to pieces when, as the result of an important military re- 
verse, the last illusions of those who still believe in the final 
triumph of our arms have vanished. 

"I do not go so far as to say that we shall then have a 
bloody revolution, but I am certain that when the German 
people awake from the state of lethargy in which the 
manoeuvres of a special military caste have plunged them, 
their relentlessness will be in proportion to their disillusion. 

"As to the violation of Belgium, I condemn it, firstly, as 
a German; and secondly, in the name of the treaties and 
conventions which guaranteed the neutrality of that coun- 
try. I condemn at the same time the pretext invoked by 
the German Government that the war was a defensive war. 
In the first place this assertion rests on no true basis. 
Germany was threatened by no one, and in the second place 
the fact that you suspect your neighbour of intending to 
steal does not authorise you to knock him down and rob 
him of his watch. 

"Happily we may say from to-day that Prussian mili- 
tarism is overcome; it is clear that sooner or later Ger- 
many must yield to the superior power of her adversaries, 
to the economic difficulties which beset her. 

"England has never yet been known to yield. She 
fought against Napoleon for fifteen years, and Napoleon 
was certainly as formidable as those who are to-day at the 
head of the Prussian military caste. 

"For my country's interest, I ardently hope that the Allies 
will speedily win the victory, and that an end will be made 
once and for all of the uniformed coteries, the wearers of 
long sabres, the enemies of progress and of real civilisation. 

"In its interest I hope that the restoration of peace and 
the establishment of a republic will permit the German 



THE DANGERS OF A PREMATURE PEACE 309 

people, delivered at last from the oppressor, to accomplish 
useful and peaceful work. 

"If Germany should, contrary to all expectations, emerge 
victorious from this terrible conflagration, liberalism and 
the power of nations to dispose freely of their destinies 
would be for ever denied them. There would, in one wc ' "^ 
be an end to right and justice and a return to prin' ^ . 
barbarism. 

"The war must make a clean sweep of everything which 
might serve in the future to encourage a return to the at- 
tack. For this reason the peace for which the Allied ar- 
mies are fighting must be a peace which will give an aspect 
to the map of Europe altogether different :^rom that which 
it had before the war. 

"The treaty which will regard the condition of future 
peace must have its basis in respect of the rights of the 
small nations to exist — the Serbs, Czechs, Roumanians, 
Ruthenians, Poles and others, not forgetting the valiant lit- 
tle Belgium, who must be reinstated in her territorial and* 
constitutional rights with a heavy indemnity." 

Security for the future must be of a twofold nature. It 
is not enough that it should be made physically impossible 
for Germany to repeat her attack upon the freedom of the 
nations; such retribution must be meted out to those who 
are proved to be directly responsible for the crime as will 
deter others from following in their footsteps. Their 
treachery has already found imitators in Greece, whose 
rulers have set at naught the sanctity of treaties with the 
same callousness as the German Chancellor himself. Oth- 
ers, as we have seen, have shown themselves apt pu- 
pils of Germany in their disregard of the rules of 
war. 

The day may be yet distant when justice will be done, 
though, in the opinion of many, it is near at hand. An 
American journalist, Mr. Frank H. Simmonds, prophesied 
that : "As the third year of the war opens not more than 
4,000,000 Austro-Germans, the last line, will confront 6,- 
000,000 Russians, British, and French, helped by some 



310 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

hundreds of thousands of Slavs and Belgians, behind whom 
will stand Russian and British reserves of at least 4,000,- 
000. This means, with every discount for the roughness 
of the estimate, that some time in the third year, while Rus- 
sia and Britain are still able to keep their armies at their 
present point, Austro-German forces will begin to decline 
rapidly and a tremendous advantage of numbers will be- 
long to the enemies of Germany." ^ 

Of greater weight is the testimony of an eminent Frank- 
fort banker, who, in an interview at Amsterdam with the 
special correspondent of the Petit Parisien, made the fol- 
lowing statement: — 

*'We shall never conquer our enemies. We were de- 
ceived as to the attitude of Italy and Roumania as much as 
we were in regard to England and Belgium. We were 
formidably deceived as to the strength of resistance and 
the moral unity of France, and deceived as to the attitude 
of neutrals, especially the United States, who to-day hate 
Germany more than any enemy country does. All our 
Foreign Ministers, all our Ambassadors, have lied to us. 

''Fortunately we had a good army. It has spared us 
many miseries, and without it we should have been finished. 
As it is, we are too ill to recover, for where shall we get 
money? That is the insoluble question for Germany. To- 
morrow she will be ruined financially. 

"We should know, in the first place, whether the Allies 
are disposed to converse. If they are we should be disposed 
to join a conference at an early date at the Hague, under 
the auspices of Queen Wilhelmina. Germany is ready to 
make sacrifices, because she sees that unless she humiliates 
herself nothing will happen. If, on the other hand, the 
Allies are not disposed to converse, an internal revolution 
will be the result, for the German people have had enough. 

"That is the whole secret of the situation. The Kaiser, 
in spite of his divine right, must reckon with his people. 
For thirty months he has let butchery loose, and this is 
the end of it all. This war has caused us to advance a 

^The Review of Reviews, February, 1915. 



THE DANGERS OF A PREMATURE PEACE 311 

century in two years, and that is the only benefit we shall 
derive from it." 

Decidedly optimistic in tone is a report by Sir Douglas 
Haig — and what better assurance can we have? "The 
enemy's power," he says, "has not yet been broken, nor is 
it yet possible to form an estimate of the time the war 
may last before the objects for which the Allies are fight- 
ing have been attained. 

"But the Somme battle has placed beyond doubt the 
ability of the Allies to gain those objects. 

"The German army is the mainstay of the Central 
Powers, and a full half of that army, despite all the advan- 
tages of the defensive, supported by the strongest fortifica- 
tions, suffered defeat on the Somme this year." 

The submarine menace, too, will be overcome. But there 
is stern work yet before us. Let us nerve ourselves to face 
it for the sake of those who will come after, though our re- 
sources have to be strained to the utmost. There are few 
of us to whom this war has not brought distress in one 
form or another. To very many of us it has brought days 
of bitter agony ; but we must march on with dry eyes to the 
completion of our task. "For the present, we must think 
of the past," as General Joffre said to his troops, "only 
that we may gather assurance for the future and remember 
the dead only that we may avenge them" — or at least bring 
it about that they shall not have died in vain. 

"This is no time for tears — no time to mourn, 
No time for sombre draperies of woe. 
Let the aggressors weep, for they have sinned 
The sin of Satan — lust of power and pride — 
Mean envy of their neighbours' weal — a plot 
Hatched amidst glozing smiles and prate of peace. 
Through the false years — until the Day — the Day 
When all this kneeling at the Devil's feet 
Should win the world — ay, let them weep. 

But we 
With eyes undimmed march on — our mourning robes 
Bejewelled by the deeds of those that die, 
Lustre on lustre — till no sable patch 
Peeps through their brilliance. 



312 THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL 

In the years to come, 
When we have done our work, and God's own peace. 
The peace of Justice, Mercy, Righteousness, 
Like the still radiance of a summer's dawn, 
With tranquil glory floods a troubled world — 
.... That is the time for tears — 
Drawn from a well of love deep down — deep down, 
Deep as the mystery of immortal souls — 
That is the time for tears — not now — not now !"* 

It has been said that this is a war to end war. If this 
aim is reached, good will ensue commensurate even with 
the blackness of Germany's crime. 

*From a poem entitled "Aftermath," published in The Times, 
in November, 1914. 



LIST OF AUTHORS AND NEWSPAPERS 
CITED OR REFERRED TO 



Ambert (General). "Recits Militaires," 268 
"Amicus Patri^." "Armenien und Kreta," 23 
Ammianus Marcellinus. Roman History, 263 
Andler (Charles). " 'Frightfulness' in Theory and Practice," 15, 
271 ; "Pan-Germanism," 20, 23 

Bailey (The Right Hon. W. F.). "The Slavs of the War Zone," 

245n. 
Baumgarten (Pastor D.). "Deutsche Reden in schwerer Zeit," 

204 
Bavarin (Fleury) in the Figaro, 143 
Beck (James M.). "The Evidence in the Case," 120; "Edifh 

Cavell," 207 
Bedier (Joseph). "Les Crimes Allemands d'apres des temoi- 

gnages allemands," 182-3, 184; "Comment TAllemagne essaie 

de justifier ses crimes," 183 
Belgian Official Reports, 149, 181 
Berlin-Anzeiger, 151 
Berliner Post, 274 
Bernhardt (General von). "Germany and the Next War," 11, 

12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 133, 284; "How Germany makes 

War," 13, 14, 18; "Unsere Zukunft," 262; "Vom Heutigen 

Kriege," 141 
Blatchford (Robert). "Germany and England," 4-5, 27 
Bloem (Walter) in the Kolnische Zeitung, 136 
Blue Book relating to German Atrocities and Breaches of the 

Rules of War in Africa, 212 
Bluntschli (Professor). 140 
BoTTA. "Storia della Guerra Americana," 271 
Brenier (Flavien). "Le Vieux Dieu AUemand," 194, 246-8, 

267 

C^SAR (Julius). "De Bello Gallico," 266, 293 
Campe-Hildesheim (Dr. von) in the Hamburger Nachrichten, 

286 
Chemnitzer Volkstimme, 27 

313 



314 LIST OF AUTHORS AND NEWSPAPERS 

Clausewitz (General von). "Vom Kriege," 17, 135, 136 
CoHN (August). "Some Aspects of the War as viewed by- 
Naturalised British Subjects," 123 
Cook (Sir Theodore Andrea). "Kaiser, Krupp and Kultur," 

50, 118, 138, 189; "The Mark of the Beast," 288 
Corbett-Smith (Major). "The Retreat from Mons," 193-4 
Cramb (Professor). "Germany and England," 3, 10 

Dagbladet, 299 

Dahn (Felix). "Urgeschichte der Germanischen und Roman- 

ischen Volker," 269; Poem, 244 
Dampierre (Jacques de). "L'Allemagne et le Droit des 

Gens," 30, 42, 43, 133-4, 140, 145, 149, 181, 182, 186, 191, 

205, 241, 244 
Darmstadter Tagehlatt, 28 

Davignon (Henri). "La Belgique et TAllemagne," 141 
Delbruck (Professor). "Germany's Answer," 19, 274 
Der Tag, 50 

Deutsche Tageszeitung, 2y 
Dillon (Dr.). "A Scrap of Paper," 3, 49 
Dion Cassius. Roman History, 266 
Diplomatic Documents, 34-42, 53, 54, 55-116 
DiTHFURT (General von) in Der Tag, 290 
DuRKHEiM (Professor). "Germany Above All," 19 

Fernau (Hermann). "Gerade weil ich Deutscher bin," 6, 239, 

307 
FiTZPATRiCK (Sir Percy). "Germany's Designs on South Africa," 

22, 44, 242, 307 
Florus. Roman History, 265, 267W. 
Fraley (Joseph). "How and Why a War Lord wages War," 

140 
Froissart, "Chronicles," 270 
Frymann (Daniel). "Wenn ich der Kaiser war," 21 

Gerlach (Herr von) in Die Welt am Montag, 9 
German Staff. "Rules of Continental War," 136 
"German War Book," 135, 137 
"Germany, Turkey and Armenia," 218-224 
"Germany's Great Lie," 125-7, 263W., 264n. 
"Germany's War Mania," 11, 132-3^., 243 
Gierke (O) in the Revue de Paris, 273 
Goethe. "Conversations with Eckermann," 262 
Gray (Alexander). "The True Pastime," 27 

Haesseler (von). 133 

Hale (Professor) in the New York Tribune, 25, 303-4 



CITED OR REFERRED TO 315 

Halsalle (Henry de). "Degenerate Germany," 272 

Hamburger Nachrichten, 28 

Hammer (von). "Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches," 213 

Hamp (Pierre) in the Figaro, 306 

Hanotaux (Gabriel) in the Revue Hebdomadaire, 138 

Harden (Maximilien) in Die Zukunft, 128-9, I34> ^37 

Hartmann (General Julius von) in Die Deutsche Rundschau, 135 

Hasse (Ernst). "Weltpolitik," 17 

Hueffer (Ford Madox). "When Blood is their Argument," 

44, 132 
Hurl (A.). "Murder at Sea," 204, 205 

"J'Accuse" (translated by A. Gray), 121 

Jairazbhoy (Cassamally). "The Suicide of Turkey," 254-6 

"Jugendgeleitbuch," 244 

Jungdeutschland Post, 29 

Klein (General) in Der Tag, 28 
Kohler. "Not kennt kein Gebot," 290 
Kolnische Volkszeitung, 209 
Kolnische Zeitung, 241 
Koloniales Jahrbuch, 22 
Kreuzzeitung, 274, 285 
Krieg's Chronik, 189 

Lagarce (Paul de). "Deutsche Schriften," 19 

L'Agence des Balkans, 225 

Lamprecht. 273 

Lange (Friedrich). "Reines Deutschtum," 25 

Lanoir (Paul). "L'Espionnage AUemand on France," 6-8 

La Revue de Paris, 278-83 

La Revue des Deux Mondes, 197 

Lasson (Adolf). "Das Kultur-Ideal und der Krieg," 134, 136; 

in the Amsterdammer, 274 
L'Echo de Paris, 196 
Le Correspondant, 195 
Le Figaro, 285 

Le Gaulois, 195, 215, 234-5, 236 
Leipziger Neueste Nachrichten, 151 
Le Matin, 152, 235, 294, 295, 307-9 
Le Petit Parisien, 195, 310 
Le Temps, 86 
Lokalanzeiger, 290 
Lord Bryce's Report on German Atrocities, 175-6, 199 

Masaryk (Professor) in the New Europe, 2, 22 
Melgar (Count) in the Matin, 187 



316 LIST OF AUTHORS AND NEWSPAPERS 

Members of the Oxford Faculty of Modern History, "Why we 

are at War," lo 
Messagiere, 214-15 
Morgan (Professor). "German Atrocities," 140, 178, 183, 186, 

194, 200, 203, 261-2 
MuNSTERBURG (Profcssor). "A Textbook of Psychology," 274 

Nazarius. "Panegyrics," 262-3 

NicoLL (Sir William Robertson) in "The Great War Book," 

242 
Nietzsche. "Also sprach Zarathustra," 14, 137 
NippoLD (Dr. Otfried). "Der Deutsche Chauvinismus," 2';^ 
Novoye Vremya, 195 

Official Report of French Commission on German Atrocities in 
France, 175-6 

"Paroles Allemandes," 17, 131, 134, 153, 181, 182, 243, 262 
PoMMER (Hans), "Zwanzig Jahre als Infanterie-offizier in den 

Reichslanden," 272 
PoMPONius Mela. "De Situ Orbis," 263-4 
PowYS (John Cowper). "The War and Culture," 297 
Procopius. "Gothic Wars," 263, 264 

Reich (Emil). "Germany's Swelled Head," 4, 240 

Reimer (J. L.). "Ein Pangermanisches Deutschland," 31 

Reiss (Professor). "How Austria-Hungary waged war in Ser- 
bia," 148, 179 

Report of Official Belgian Commission on Atrocities committed 
in Belgium, 177 

Report on the Typhus Epidemic at Gardelegen by Government 
Committee, 227-8 

Reports by Officials of United States Embassy on German and 
Austrian internment camps in the United Kingdom, 229-31 

Repplier (Miss Agnes), 274^., 277-8 

Reventlow (Count zu) in t'he Deutsche TagesBeitung, 285 

Robertson (The Right Honourable J. M.). "The German Idea 
of Peace Terms," 136; "The Germans," 269-70 

Ronnberg. "Uber Symbolische Biicher im Bezug auf Staatsrecht," 

133-4 
RosEMEiER (Dr. Hermann). "An Open Letter," 123 

Salvianus. "De Gubernatione Dei," 263M., 264-5 
Schellendorf (General Bronsart von), 17 
Schopenhauer. "Memorabilien," 262 

Seyden (Professor von) in the Frankfurter Zeitung, 273, 285 
Smith (Thomas F. A.). "The Soul of Germany," 11, 240 



CITED OR REFERRED TO 317 

Sprenger (Anton). "Babylonien das reichste Land in der Vor- 
zeit und das lohnendste Kolonisationsfeld fur die Gegenwart," 

Steffens. "Was ich erlebte," 271 
Strabo. "Geography," 293 

Struycken (Professor). "German White Book on the War in 
Belgium. A Commentary," 200-1 

Tacitus. "History," 22, 266, 296; "Annals," i, 265, 266, 267, 
296; "Germania," 44, 263, 267, 272 

Tannenberg. "Gross-Deutschland," 17, 21, 22, 23, 24, 47, 48, 
135, 137 

The Daily Express, 286, 287 

The Daily Mail, 126 

The Evening News, 227 

The German White Book, 202 

"The Horrors of Wittenberg," Official Report of the British Gov- 
ernment, 226 

"The Military Interpreter," 275 

The Morning Post, 259-60 

The Near East, 153, 251-4 

The New York Herald, 209 

The New York Times, 50, 209, 299 

The New York Tribune, 299-301 

The North American, 294 

The Review of Reviews, 310 

The Spectator, 26 

The Times, 50, 198, 216, 218, 312 

"The War and the German Propaganda," 20, 240 

The War Week by Week, 26, 132 

Treitschke. "Die Politik," 1 1, 15, 20, 132, 133, 242; "Deutsche 
Kampfe," 51 

"Truth and Travesty," 203 

Usher (Professor). "Pan-Germanism," 45 

Vorwaerts, 240 

Velleius Paterculus. "Roman History," 264 

Vossische Zeitung, 291 

Wagner (Klaus). "Krieg," 242 

Weeks (Professor Raymond) quoted in "A Text-Book of the 
War for Americans," 275-6 

Weill (Alexander). "Revolt of the Peasants," 194 

White (J. William). "A Text-Book of the War for Ameri- 
cans," 26, 45, 132, 134, 138-9, 142, 193, 203, 248, 294, 296, 
302, 304 



318 LIST OF AUTHORS AND NEWSPAPERS 

Whitridge (Frederick W.). "One American's Opinion of the 

European War," 2y6-y, 306 
Wilson (H. W.) in the National Review, 54, 123, 141-2, 150, 

151, 152, 196-7, 237-8 
Wrichen (General von) in the Dansiger Neueste Nachrichten, 28 

Zeller (Jules). "Les Origines de rAllemagne," 267-8, 269 



GENERAL INDEX 



(The Roman numerals refer to the chapters) 



Adana, massacre of Armenians at 

in 1909, 213 
Adana-Baghdad Railway, 22 
Agadir, 9, 35 
Agha Khan, 251, 255 
Algeciras Conference, 9 
Algeria, German intrigues in, 24, 

36 
Alsace-Lorraine, 239, 300 
American Rights Committee, 27 
Amiens, Peace of, 293 
Antwerp, 51 

Arabia, German designs on, 23 
Argentine Republic, 24 
Ariovistus, 291 seq. 
Armenians, massacre of, 213-224 
Arminius, 265-6 
Asia Minor, German designs on, 

23 
Asquith (The Right Hon. H. H.), 

5, 210, 232, 250 
Atrocities, committed by Germans 

and Austrians in Europe, VI, 

VII; in Africa, X 
. German defence of, VIII 
testimony of German soldiers, 

VII 
committed by Bulgarians, 224-5 
model letter for denial of, 275 
Attila, 134, 135m. 
Austria, alleges that she has no 

intention of occupying Serbian 

territory, 96 
refuses negotiations, 50, 65, 68 
her ultimatum to Serbia, 52 seq. 
declares war against Serbia, 65, 

67 

Balfour (Right Hon. A. J.), 5 

Balkan Question, 72 

Barzilai (Signor), 123^. 

Beck (James M.), his verdict as 

to responsibility for war, 118- 

19 



Belgian Official Reports, 149^., 

174, 177 
Belgians, transportation of, 147, 

150 
Belgium, alleged agreement of, 
with England, 141-2M. 
French Government undertakes 

to respect neutrality of, 90 
German Government refuses to 
give assurances to respect 
neutrality of, 89, 90, 91 
German schemes for annexation 

of, 17, 21, 22, 24 
German schemes for invasion 
. of, 38 
integrity of, 70 
invasion of, 109 
King of, his appeal to King 
George, 107; his conversation 
with Kaiser, 41 
refuses "friendly neutrality," 

107 
treaties guaranteeing neutrality 

of, 139-40 
ultimatum to, 38, 107, 109 
violation of neutrality of, by 

Germany, 141-2 
will maintain her neutrality, 93 
Benckendorff (Count), 56 
Berchtold (Count), 58, 64, 95 
Berlin-Baghdad scheme, 32 
Bethmann-Hollweg (Imperial 

Chancellor), 60, 289 
his speech before Reichstag, 
142-3 
Bismarck, 4, 5, 10, 43, 44, 243 
Bissolati ''(Signor), 296 
Boehn (General von), 191, 307 
Bolivia, 24 

Brazil, German schemes with re- 
gard to, 24, 25 
British dominions, loyalty of, 306 
merchant ships, detained at 
Hamburg, 93, 108 



319 



320 



GENERAL INDEX 



British Empire, German mis judg- 
ment of situation in, 50 

Bryce (Viscount), his committee, 
I53W., 17s, 199 

Bucharest, attempts by Germans 
to infect the population of, 
with disease, 153 

Bulgaria, 24 

Bulgarian atrocities, 224-5 

Billow (General von), 145 

Bunsen (Sir M. de), 64 

Butters (Lieutenant Harry), 304 

Calais, 51 

Cambon (M. Jules, French Am- 
bassador at Berlin), 71 
instructed to ask for his pass- 
ports, 105 

Castberg (President of the Nor- 
wegian Lower House), 298 

Cathedrals, destruction of, 248, 

295 

Cavell (Miss Edith), murder of, 
205-8 
statue of presented to the Ville 
de Paris by the Matin, 284 

Central Africa, German schemes 
with regard to, 25 

"Central Europe," 30, 32 

Charlemagne, 247 

Cherbourg, 51 

Chili, 24 

China, division of, 24 
German propaganda in, 234 

Christ, of German origin, 31 

Colonies, British, German in- 
trigues in, 44 
French, German refusal to 

guarantee integrity of, 70 
German, 36 

Conference, suggested by Sir Ed- 
ward Grey to avert war, 58, 
59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 68, 74, 
79, 83, 84, 85, 88, 94, 98 

Congo State, proposed annexation 
of, by Germany, 21 

Cromer (Lord), 5 

Democracy, 241, 296 

Denmark, 37; proposed annexa- 
tion of, by Germany, 17 

Dernburg (Count), 237 

Deschanel (M. Paul, President of 
French Chamber), 296-7 

"Deutschlanc iiber Alles," 10, 25, 
238, 297 

"Deutschtum iiber Alles," 35, 239, 
240, 297 



Dieckmann (Major), 147 
Dinant, atrocities at, 148-9, 
201 

Egypt, 22, 23 
German intrigues in, 36-7, 44, 

46 
Egyptian School, 37 
Emerson, 203 
England, Tannenberg's assertions 

with regard to, 45 seq. 
the last settlement with, 51 
English language, to be replaced 

by German, 27 
Entente Cordiale, 9, 40-41 

Falaha, i02n. 

Ferdinand (Archduke), murder 
of, 52 

Fontenoy, 281 

France, 49 
German misjudgment of the sit- 
uation in, 50 

Franks, 263, 264, 269 

Frederick the Great, i, 300 

French Official Report on German 
Atrocities, 174, 176 

Fryatt (Captain), 204, 208-10 

"Furor Teutonicus," 272 

Gardelegen, treatment of prison- 
ers at, 226 
Garroni (Senator, Italian Ambas- 
sador at Constantinople), 
123?^. 
Gazette des Ardennes, 235 
Gerard (Mr. J, W., American 
Ambassador at Berlin), 116 
German allegations as to secret 
treaty between England and 
Belgium, 141W. 
army, its rapid development, 5; 
secret report on strengthening 
of, 34-38 
bid for neutrality of Great 

Britain, 70, 71, 79, 91, 92 
chauvinism, 27 seq. 
fleet, 6, 25 

Humanity League, their appeal 

to foreign Socialists, 259-60 

language to be forced on the 

world, 27 
propaganda, XIH 
soldiers' diaries testifying to 
commission of atrocities, VII 
spy system, 7-9, 44, 243 
troops enter Belgian territory, 
109-10 



GENERAL INDEX 



321 



German ultimatum to Russia, 86, 

88. 89, 92, loi, 102 
War Journal, 141 
White Book, 1914, 34; concern- 
ing Atrocities in Belgium, 

200-3 
Germans, as known to the Ro- 
mans, 262 seq. 
as seen by themselves, 262, 263-4 
"das Kulturvolk kot i^ox-^v," 

262 
instability of, i 
naturalisation of, abroad, 276, 

278 
their carousals, 271, 272M, 
their conduct in earlier wars, 

270-1 
their cult of war, I passim 
their designs on America, 25 
their dreams of conquest, I 

passim, 44, 128, 129, 238, 239, 

301 
their hatred of England, 284 seq. 
their inability to understand the 

English character, 48 
Germany, aggressive intentions of, 

I passim, 
crime in, 272-3 
declares war on Russia, 103 
military party in, 40 
refuses to give assurances to 

respect Belgian neutrality, 89, 

90, 91 
refuses to interfere in Austro- 

Serbian dispute, 57, 62, 78, 83 
repeats assurance that she will 

not annex Belgian territory, 

108 
God, old German, i, 138, 243-5 
Goethe, 16, 262 
Goltz (von der), his proclamation, 

146 
Goschen (Sir Edward), his final 

interview with Herr von 

Jagtiw, 109-11; do. with 

Chancellor, 111-13 
asks for passports, no 
Great Britain, Germany's bid for 

neutrality of, 70, 71, 91, 92 
declines to enter into any en- 
gagement to stand aside, 72 
' German schemes with regard 

to, 27 
Germany's attempt to bribe, 48 
presents ultimatum to Germany, 

109 
Greece, German propaganda in, 

233 



Grey (Sir Edward), 5, 56, 61, 69, 
80 
his efforts for peace, 80, 88, 126, 
127 

Haeckel (Ernst), 132 
Hague, tribunal of the, 54 

conferences, 152^., 154, 212 
Haig (Sir Douglas), 311 
Harden (Maximilien), I28m. 
Hasselt, 146 
Heimdall, 245 
Heine, 248;^., 262 
Hirschel, 262 
Holland, 20, 21, 24, 23y 70 
Hospital ships, torpedoing of, 152, 

198, 286 
Hospitals, fired on, 153 
Hyderabad (Nizam of), 250 

India, German intrigues in, 44, 255 
German propaganda in, 234, 238 
loyalty of, 306 
Islam, fate of under German rule, 
288 seq. 
holy places of, 232, 256; respect 
of, by British Government, 
250 
Italy, considers war declared by 
Austria as having aggressive 
object, 106-7 

Jagow (Herr von), 55, 61, 62, 140 
his views on small States, 19 
last interview with Sir Edward 

Goschen, no 
Sir Edward Goschen appeals to 
his humanity, 102 
Jena, i 
Joffre (General), his addresses to 

his troops, 297, 311 
Jugendgeleitbuch, 244 

Kaiser, 5, 9, 10, iin., 30 

an "Instrument of heaven," 
295-6 

his address to the army proceed- 
ing to China, 134-5 

his address to the armies pro- 
ceeding to the East, 130 

his alleged letter to Austrian 
Emperor, 187 

his change of attitude in 1913, 
.42, 44 

his conversation with the King 
oi Belgium, 41 

his personifications, 245 and n. 

his religion, 243 



322 



GENERAL INDEX 



Kaiser, "the only master," 240 
Kantagora, Emir of, 251 
Kultur, 16, 28, V 248 
at home, 271-2 

Lansdowne (Marquis of), 5 

Law (the Right Hon. Bonar), 
296, 306 

League of Neutral States, Holland 
Section of, 297-8 

Lichnowsky (Prince), 54, 56 

Liebknecht, 52 ; his protest against 
the war, 258-9 

Liege, atrocities at, 148 

Longwy, 103 

Louvain, atrocities at, 148, 300 

Lusitania, 204-5, 30O 

Luxemburg, suggested annexation 
of, 21 
neutrality of, violated by Ger- 
many, 103-S, 143 

Machiavelli, 132-3, 242W, 
"Man hat geschossen," 201 
Megamolania, Prussian, 2 
Melgar (Count), 187 
Mensdorfif (Count, Austrian Am- 
bassador in London), y^,, 95 
Mercier (Cardinal), 150;^!., 203 
Mesopotamia, German designs on, 

23 
Militarism, 241, 289-90, 294 
Millioud (French translator of 

Gross-Deutschland) , 242 
Mobilisation by Austria, 59, 60, 
63,85 
by France, 94-5 
by Germany, 59, 82, 86, 94-5, 97, 

99, 100 
by Russia, 59, 65, 69, 75, 76, 77, 
78, 85, 86, 87, 89, 92 
Moltke (Count von), 15, 41 
assures Kaiser of German en- 
thusiasm for war, 42 
Monroe Doctrine, in danger from 

German aggression, 25-6 
Morocco, 19 
Morocco, German intrigues in, s^, 

71 
Moschee, 248 

Namur, atrocities at, 154 

Napoleon, 293, 300, 30^ 

Naumann (Pastor), 23 

Navy League (German), 6 

Nero, 288 

Nietzsche, 139 

Nonnenmacher (Melchior), 194M. 



Odin, 243 
Odin-Verein, 245 

Palestine, German designs on, 23 

Pan-Germanism, 30-33 

Papen (Captain von), 238 

Paraguay, 24 

Peace, dangers of a premature, 2, 

XVI 
views of German intellectuals as 

to, 15 
Poland, 24 
Poles, 239-40 
Powell (E. Alexander), atrocities 

witnessed by him, 189-91 
his interview with General von 

Boehn, 191 -2, 307 
Prisoners, treatment of, in Ger- 
many and England, XH 
Proclamations by German officers 

in France and Belgium, 145-8 
distributed by aeroplanes, 236 
Propaganda, German, 233, XHI 
"Provocation" for atrocities, 198 
Priin (Emile, Burgomaster of 

Chevraux), 259 
Psychological moment (the), 18, 

n, 44-5, 57 

Rheims, hostages seized at, 146 
Roberts (Lord), 3, 4, 5 
Roumania, 24 

Russia, her efforts towards con- 
ciliation, 78 
German mis judgment of situa- 
tion in, 49 
German ultimatum to, 86, 88, 
89, 92, 99, 102 

Salisbury (Marquis of), 3 

Sarajevo, 52 

Sazonof (M. de, Russian Minis- 
ter for Foreign Affairs), 58, 
64, 77, 78, 94, 97, 102 
his efforts to avoid war, 

98. 

Scandinavia, 37 

Scarborough, 152^. 

Scezsen (Count), 58, 63 

Schiller, 30^. 

Schleswig-Holstein, 239, 300 

Schnee (Governor of German 
South Africa), his circular 
concerning the spread of Is- 
lam, 249 

"Scrap of paper," iii 

Sempst, atrocities at, 148M., 163 

Senoussi, 234 



GENERAL INDEX 



323 



Serbia, 24 

ultimatum to, 52 seq., 76 
Shereef of Mecca, his manifesto, 

251-4 
Siam, 74 
Slavs, 31 
Small States, annexation of, 17, 

19, 20, 21, 27, 38, 13s 
South Africa, German schemes 

with regard to, 22 
South America, German schemes 

with regard to, 25 
Statecraft, 132 seq. 
Stenger (General), orders for 

murder of prisoners, 147 
Stieber, 7, 8 
Switzerland, 21, z7_ 
Syria, German designs on, 23 

Tangier, 9 

Teuton and Slav Question, 72 

Thor, 243 seq. 

Thugs, 243, 288 

Tibet, 297 

Treaty proposed by Tannenberg 

with England, 24 
with Austria, 25 
Trieste, proposal that Germany 

should annex, 17 
Treitschke, 11 and n., 20 
Tsar, appeal to, by Serbia, 54 
Tunis, 24 

German intrigues in, 36 
Turkey, German designs on, 22, 

25, 30, 255-6 

Umfrid (O.), hm. 
United States, German propa- 
, ganda in, 233, 237 seq., 302 

seq. 
German schemes with regard 
to, 25, 26, 27 



United States, sympathy of, with 

Allies, 26, 257, 302 
Uruguay, 24 

Vandaleur (Major), 196 

Varus, 265, 293 

Venice, proposed annexation by 

Germany, 17 
Vieber (General von), 146 

Walhalla, 244 seq. 
War, Englishmen's attitude with 
regard to, 278-283 
German cult of, 11 seq., 40 
German preparations for, 5, 6, 

2,6, 39, 44, 82, 85 
Germany throws responsibility 

for, on Russia, 96-7 
Germany responsible for, as a 

nation, 42, 43, 258-62 
responsibility for, IV 
what Tannenberg predicted on 
outbreak of, 45-8 
Waterloo, 271 
Wavre, 146 
"Weltmacht oder Niedergang," 

12 
Wittemberg, treatment of prison- 
ers at, 226 
Wotan, 243 

Yellow Book (French), 1913, 34- 

42 
"Young Turkey" party, 251 seq. 

Zamacois (Miguel, French poet), 
i87n. 

Zeppelins, raids by, isim. 

Zimmermann (von, German Un- 
der-Secretary of State), his 
interview with Sir Edward 
Goschen, 113 



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